


Phone Tag

by ficlicious



Series: Tumblr Prompts & Ficlets [13]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Anxiety, BAMF Pepper Potts, But Mostly My Kind of Crack, Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Clint Barton Needs a Hug, Denial Is Not Just De River In Egypt, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, F/M, First Time, Fix-It of Sorts, Humor, M/M, Maria Hill is a Good Bro, Mutual Pining, Mutually Unrequited, Natasha Is a Good Bro, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Oblivious Tony Stark, Pepper Is Meddlesome, Protective Natasha, Protective Pepper Potts, Protective Rhodey, Requited Unrequited Love, Scars, The Author Regrets Nothing, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, dumbasses in love, phone tag
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-29
Updated: 2017-04-04
Packaged: 2018-09-03 03:41:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 22,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8695048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ficlicious/pseuds/ficlicious
Summary: In which Toni nurses a crush and a migraine, Clint unretires, Natasha is meddlesome, Hope and Rhodey are Salty Grandmas, the Capkateers run amok and there is an army of lawyers. Slightly AUish of Civil War. MCU-adjacent. Unrelated to other works.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Medie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medie/gifts).



> Forgive my minor plotholes. It's for comedy's sake.
> 
> And don't ask. Don't ask. This is me avoiding adulting for a little bit.

_ You’ve reached the Life Model Decoy of Toni Stark. She’s busy avoiding your phonecall at the moment, so leave a message and she’ll get back to you as soon as hell freezes over.  _

_ “Toni, what the hell is going on? Why is Cap calling me asking me to come back for a special mission? Why’s he asking me not to tell you anything? Why is Natasha calling me telling me to stay out of it, stay retired? Why aren’t  _ you  _ calling me? Pick up your fucking phone, Stark, and call me. Text. Send smoke signals. Whatever it is you do. Just… let me know what’s going on.” _

Toni replays the message for the third time, and for the third time feels the onset of a headache brewing with the aggravated beat of her pulse through her temples. Her hand tightens on the phone until the protective shell creaks in protest, and she releases her death grip with great effort. 

“Problems?”

She turns after leaping a mile out of her skin, and eyeballs Natasha, thinking for the millionth time how handy a fucking bell would be on her next Widow suit. “Not at all,” she says, sweet and sharp and a hundred-percent smiling her fakest, most gritted-teeth smile, and starts thumbing numbers on her keypad. “Just wondering why Cap is calling Barton out of retirement when he fucking  _ knows  _ Clint has kids he’s finally putting first.”

Natasha’s eyebrows shoot up. “Cap’s doing what?”

“You heard me.” She lifts the phone to her ear and listens to it ring, drums her fingers as she waits out the feminine machine voice telling her that the subscriber is out of the service area or has the phone turned off. After the beep, she clears her throat. “I’m not calling you because for some unfathomable reason, I respect your stupid ass. Said stupid ass needs to stay on the fucking farm. Rogers shouldn’t have called you. And I’m definitely not calling you. Park it, Clint. You’re retired, and Nat is right. Stay fucking retired.”

She thumbs “End Call”, and drops her hand to her side, case creaking under her death grip again. With her other hand, she squeezes the bridge of her nose, trying to stave off the incoming migraine. 

“Did you just agree with me?” Natasha says after a moment. “Did you just say I was right?”

“I take it all back,” Toni mutters. “I want to take it all back.”

**oOoOoOo**

_ You have one new message.  _

_ “You’re about to do something stupid and self-sacrificing, I can tell from message you didn’t leave in my voicemail. Nat said this is about the Accords, and there was a really fucking weird metaphor about a tree telling a river to go around, or something. So here’s the deal, Toni. Either you call again, or you don’t. But if you do, just fucking tell me where I can find you? I’m too old for this high school phone tag bullshit, and if you need me, open your mouth and use your words like a big girl.” _

Toni swallows and closes her eyes, and her skull thunks against the wall behind her. “Natasha, I’m about ready to take away your phone privileges,” she says without turning her head. “What are you doing?”

“Having your back,” Natasha says calmly, checking the charge on her Widow’s Bite gauntlets, nodding with satisfaction at the crackle of blue electricity when she thumbs the release. “Because someone has to.”

Toni sighs, rubs her forehead, lifts the phone because this is getting ridiculous and it needs to end now. As the automated system informs her that, once again, Clint doesn’t have his fucking phone turned on, she twists the phone away from her mouth and says in a scathing undertone, “All you’re doing is lighting more fires and I’ve got too many to put out as it is.” 

Natasha shrugs, with a tiny smile playing around her mouth, and Toni glares. 

At the tone, she sighs. “If you’re too old for phone tag, Clint, maybe you should pick up your phone or something. Nat has no business calling you. Rogers has no business calling you. And I’m  _ not calling you.  _ Just stay put, for fuck’s sake. I’m not interested in being responsible for ruining your life too. I’ve got enough shit to deal with as it is, and you showing up when you should be having tea parties or training them how to crawl into vents is one more fucking thing I’ll be guilty for. So don’t come to Halle. Just stay where you are, where it’s safe. I’ll fill you in when I can, which will probably be half past never.”

She drops her phone into her lap, and starts rubbing her temples in soothing, circular motions. It’s not nearly as soothing as it should be.

“If you don’t want him to show up,” Natasha says after a moment, “why’d you tell him Germany?”

And Toni stills, because  _ fuck,  _ she did, didn’t she? Goddammit. She needs to take a nap or something. She’s too tired for this bullshit. “Shut the fuck up, Natasha,” she mutters, “ and pretty please I’d appreciate a cup of coffee.”

**oOoOoOo**

After Vision’s report that Wanda got a phone call from Sam, slammed Vision through twenty floors, and has now gone AWOL from the Avengers compound, Toni very quietly tries to will herself out of existence on the spot. Rhodey knows that’s what she’s doing, since she’s lying back, still and silent, with a pillow held so tightly over her face he’s going to have to check her for self-suffocation in a minute, and that’s what she always does when she’s trying to retcon herself into nothingness. 

When his self-allotted minute passes, he reaches out and plucks the pillow off her face, catches the tail end of her almost-sub-audible shriek, and gently squeezes her shoulder after making sure she’s still in sprawling-hopelessly mode and not sitting-up-abruptly mode. “It’ll be okay, Tones,” he says sympathetically. 

She lolls her head so her face is vaguely in his direction. “How, honeybear?” she asks, practically toneless. “Barton’s unretiring for me, despite my insistence I don’t want his stupid fucking ass anything but retired, and now Wanda’s completely lost her shit and disappeared after once again having a temper tantrum about me. I have to call Hope and see if she wants to come play superhero with me because I have one of her mother’s old Wasp suits stored away in my mothballed mansion, and because my other option is an infant in skinny jeans. And we haven’t begun to touch on the bullshit that is Captain America and his team of Capkateers thinking they can run around and do whatever the fuck they like, and fuck the rest of the world.”

Her summation is not unexpected, but it is bleaker than he thought it would get. The apathy and nihilism are barometers of how far sleep debt and this shitshow has driven her, and Rhodey doesn’t like what they’re telling him. Thankfully, he knows how to counter this stuff. “Jesus, Toni, arrogant much?” 

She cracks open an eyelid. “Scuse me?”

Rhodey sighs, lowers a hand to stroke through her hair, like he used to do when they were in college and she was touch-starved for affection after years of Howard’s A+ parenting style. It’s always had a calming effect, and it works like a charm now. “Hope’s been looking for an excuse to get away from her crazy old man for ages,” Rhodey counters, gentle but firm. “And I always got your back. As for the rest of it? Barton’s a grown-ass man, so if he’s coming back, that’s on him, not on you. Wanda’s a grown-ass woman, and if she wants to defy every piece of sane advice she’s been offered about staying where she’s safe because she’s not an American citizen and Gitmo is still open for business? That’s on her, not you.”

Toni’s eyes slip shut and she squirms around until her head’s in Rhodey’s lap. She folds her hands across her stomach and sighs as she goes boneless. “Shoulda found a solution. Cap’s my fault,” she mumbles, slurring with exhaustion and encroaching unconsciousness. 

“Like hell he is,” Rhodey replies, soft and fervent, but Toni’s already asleep. He keeps stroking through her hair anyway, because it’ll keep her asleep, and pulls out his phone to text Hope van Dyne with his free hand. 

**oOoOoOo**

_ You have one new message.  _

_ “Quit bitching at me to pick up my phone when you can’t manage to do the same. Unless you’re avoiding my calls, in which case, dick move, Stark. See you in Halle.” _

“Goddammit!” Toni shrieks, and pitches the phone across the room. It cracks against the wall on the far side of the quinjet hangar and quietly shatters, narrowly avoiding smacking Hope in the head, still fitting her suit pieces into place as she enters the hangar.

Oops. Forgot she was wearing the armor. 

Hope stops dead in her tracks, eyes the scattered pieces of the phone, eyes the dent in the wall, and casually crosses the floor, adjusting the gloves of her Wasp suit. “Problems?” she asks calmly. 

“Barton’s coming,” she says from between gritted teeth and the fingers of the gauntlets she’s currently got her face buried in. “Someone loan me their phone so I can call and tell him once and for all to fuck off. I seem to have broken mine.”

“Don’t look at me,” Rhodey says easily, after the faceplate slides back. “I left my cell in my other suit.”

“You didn’t bother giving me pockets,” Natasha says. “Where would I keep it?”

“Right next to your many knives.” Toni would like to stop talking through clenched teeth at some point, but she doesn’t think it’s going to happen any time soon. “Hope?”

“Sure, here.” Just as Toni’s reaching for the phone, Hope’s glove sparks yellow for a blink-and-you-miss-it nanosecond, and the screen goes dark. “Oops,” Hope says innocently. “Must have forgotten to charge the battery.”

“I fucking hate you all,” Toni mutters, and stomps up the ramp to the passenger bay of the quinjet. 

\------

Hope watches Toni go, chews on the inside of her cheek. “Well,” she says after a long moment, turning to Rhodey and Natasha with a bright smile, “I see Toni's got a crush. How long has that been going on?”

Natasha smirks faintly. “Since about the second she saw his ass in leather pants. So… Chitauri?”

“Sounds about right,” Rhodey agrees after a moment of thought. “There’s gonna be a lot of yelling if he’s there when we get to Germany. The more unresolved the sexual tension, the louder she screams and the more swear words she uses.”

Hope blinks and glances at the ramp, then back to Rhodey and Natasha.  _ “Unresolved  _ sexual tension? That doesn’t sound like Toni. She’s usually the first one to tell you what she wants.”

“Not this guy,” Rhodey says with a grin. “I’ve never seen her get so flustered so quickly, and all he had to do was throw some quippy one-liner bullshit her way.” His smile slips then, just a little. “Really threw her for a loop when she found out he was married.”

Hope shakes her head with a sigh, still fiddling with her belt, checking the Pym particles stored in their devices. “Poor Toni. Did she go all weird and quiet when she found out?”

“You have no idea,” Natasha says with a delicate snort. “The hilarious thing is, Laura and I are more married than Clint and Laura ever were. It made sense years ago, when Cooper was born and we all had to cut through bureaucratic red tape to make sure SHIELD paychecks went to the right place. Director Stoner was an ass about things like that.”

Hope isn’t sure exactly what’s happening, just that Rhodey has turned all the way around to stare at Natasha like she’s suddenly sprouted eight more heads and green scales. She doesn’t know Natasha well enough to read the more subtle facial expressions, but if she had to guess, she’d say that Natasha looked pleased with herself.

“Say again?” Rhodey says, faint and high. 

“I don’t know what’s so hard to understand about what I just said, Rhodes,” Natasha says archly, and stoops to swing her pack up onto her shoulder. “Laura and I couldn’t get married, so Clint and Laura did, so we’d be sure SHIELD wouldn’t fuck us around for keeping Laura supported in case I died. You never wondered why I paid for almost everything for Clint? It’s because his paycheck used to go into a joint account for Laura and the kids.” She shrugs, smiles faintly. “Now mine does.”

Rhodey blinks, and begins to grin. “Wait, so… You and Laura are...”

“Yep,” Natasha says.

“And the kids are…”

“Yep.”

“But Clint’s…”

“We are three happy co-parents,” Natasha says. “And nothing else.”

There’s a grin on Rhodey’s face that Hope’s seen before. It always shows up when he’s delighted beyond measure, because of someone else’s dumbassery. “And Toni doesn’t know?”

“Clearly not. I’m not sure how she's missed it for so long, but her finding out promises to be entertaining.”

“... now I wish I had time to make popcorn,” Rhodey grumbles amicably, and ambles up the ramp to join Toni in the quinjet.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some lines lifted from CACW.

Toni isn’t sure whether to be relieved or pissed when the quinjet touches down on the far side of the Halle airport, and there’s Clint waiting on the tarmac. He’s in civvies, hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans and collar of his jacket turned up against the wind, duffel bag at his feet. She seems to be settling for a mix of both, because even as her back teeth are grinding and her blood pressure is shooting through the roof, there’s a sagging sensation in her knees, a desire to burst into tears, because there he is and _there he fucking is._

The quinjet touches down and Toni disembarks with the ground-eating stride of a woman on a crusade. A surge of nausea and exhilaration swirls her thoughts around and, for a long terrifying moment, she isn’t sure if she’s hurrying towards him in order to yell at him, or kiss him stupid.

_Married, married,_ she chants in her head, to remind herself to keep her hands off the merchandise. Unless she’s going to shake it until its teeth rattle, that is. Her fingers flex inside her gauntlets and it suddenly occurs to her that going anywhere near him with the kind of firepower she packs and the tumultuous mental state she’s in is probably a Very Bad Idea.

She hits the release midstride and barely breaks pace, leaving the armor frozen in place behind her. Clint, for his part, doesn’t move, just watches her stomping towards him with a funny little smile crinkling his eyes, and the wind ruffling through his hair.

“Clearly, retirement suits you,” she calls ascerbically, still chanting _marriedmarriedmarried_ in her head. “Do you not know how to take a fucking hint? I told you. I fucking told you I didn’t want you here. Why are you here?”

He shrugs and the smile broadens a little. “Played eighteen,” he calls back. “Hit eighteen. Just can’t seem to miss. And what you want and what you need, sweetheart, are two very different things. You need me, I’m here.”

Her back teeth grind together and a haze descends over her vision, because she does not need to be told what she needs, thank you very much. Her hands come up as she closes in on him, and she just knows that she’s going to strangle the everloving shit out of him. “I…. I….”

To her utter shock, she doesn’t strangle him, or take a swing, or any other violent fantasy she’s indulged over the past twenty-four hours. She’s absolutely certain she reached out to seize his collar in both hands, but what actually happens is she practically throws herself into his arms, buries her face in his neck, and does her best to not cry. “I fucking hate you,” she mumbles against the skin of his throat.

“I know you do, Toni,” he says, amused, “and I came anyway.” His arms slide around her back, one hand threads into her hair, and the comforting, protective warmth that washes over her from that simple gesture undoes every last fragile shred of self-control she has left.

And she bursts into ugly, messy, wracking tears.

It’s horrific and she can’t stop herself from clinging to him and sobbing into his shoulder, but the dam has broken and she’s out of fingers to plug up the holes.  She tries to shove away from him, but his arms just tighten, his chin hooks over her shoulder, and he refuses to let her go.

She’s not sure how long they’re standing there, but eventually the gulping sobs wind down into hitching gasps, and she settles into quiet, exhausted sniffling. “Sorry,” she croaks, voice wrecked from her crying jag, and brings a hand up to swipe the tears off her cheek. “It’s been a hell of a week.”

“Only a week? Christ, Toni. I retire for what, five minutes and everything goes to shit.” His amusement rumbles through his chest, and Toni huffs a small laugh, closes her eyes, leans her head back on his shoulder. She’s going to need to move, and soon, but right now she’s just so goddamn tired, she needs the support or she’s going to fall down.

That’s what she’s telling herself, anyway. It has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that she’s missed his solid warmth, the fond mocking in his voice…

_Married,_ she reminds herself. _Oh so very married with a litter of miniature agents, and I can’t do anything that might damage that._

She’ll move in a second. She swears. This is going to be the last time she’s ever this close to him, so for the time being, she’s just going to enjoy it.

**oOoOoOo**

“What are they doing now?” Laura’s voice is tinny and crackling over the speakerphone, testament to the stellar connection Natasha has always found available at airports. “This is so frustrating. Are you sure you can’t get me on video chat, honey?”

Natasha smiles just a little and glances at Rhodes, who’s still looking like someone whacked him over the head with a clue bat as he shakes his head in response. “We barely have a voice connection, Laura,” he says in apology. “This is the best we can do. I’m sorry.”

Laura’s sigh is noisy and aggrieved. “I should have come with you.”

“That would have spoiled the fun well in advance,” Natasha says gently, still cradling the smartphone faceup in her hand as she leans against the wall, squinting out the porthole at her distant teammates. “This was all your idea to begin with, I’ll remind you.”

“I know.” Laura sighs again, and Natasha can picture her at home, sitting at their kitchen table with her earpiece in, shoving her hands through her hair until it’s wild and messy. Natasha’s favorite look, if she’s being honest. “I can still wish I was there, can’t I?”

“Don’t worry, Laura,” Hope cuts in, and Natasha glances at her, finding her sitting at the quinjet’s controls. “I’ve got the quinjet recording it for you. The audio quality won’t be the best, but I can get Scott to —” She falters slightly, and a shadow crosses her face. She clears her throat. “I can get FRIDAY to try and clean it up for you.”

If Laura noticed Hope’s slip-up, and Natasha knows there’s not a chance in hell Laura missed it, she’s considerate enough to not say anything about it. “I like you already, Hope,” she says warmly. “You can consider yourself an honorary Romanoff-Barton. Family dinner is Sunday at 6. Natasha will bring you.”

“Barton-Romanoff,” Natasha corrects absently, bends her head to check on the progress of the Dumbasses of 2012 reunion outside. “They’re still just standing there, clinging to each other,” she says, mildly disgusted. “If this doesn’t work, I’m going to try an application of my Widow’s Bites and see if that wakes them up.”

“Patience, Tasha,” Laura chides, and Natasha sighs. “Let’s save tasers for the last resort, hmm?”

“You get one,” Hope says cheerfully, spinning her seat back around to face Natasha with a conspiratorial grin. “I’ll get the other.”

“I knew I liked you,” Natasha says in approval, then gestures at the board behind Hope. “Turn the feed up. Laura can’t hear what they’re saying.”

As Hope complies, Rhodes shakes his head again, but Natasha thinks he’s starting to lose the bewildered look. “How long have you two been planning this?”

“A long time,” Natasha says shortly, shielding her eyes and grimacing. She's one of the most patient operatives to ever graduate the Red Room program, but this pussyfooting around her teammates have been doing has stretched the limits of her tolerance. “They're still just standing there. I think he's smelling her hair. Are you sure I can’t just—”

“Since New York,” Laura replies, “and no, Natasha. We agreed we’d prod them subtly. You’re the one who said Toni would resist if we were obvious about it.”

Rhodes barks a laugh. “Biggest understatement of the year,” he says, and swipes a hand down his face. “You could lead her to the biggest bowl of Ben & Jerry’s in the world, but the second she suspects she’s not in control, she digs in her heels and refuses to budge, even if it’s something she really wants.”

“Well,” Hope says, firm and sure, and claps her hands against her knees with a determined slap. “Count me in. I haven’t meddled in Toni’s life in years. I’m long overdue.”

Natasha winces at Laura’s delighted squeal, because damn, but the woman can put dogs howling with her pitch when she gets excited. It’s usually not a problem, because it also happens to be the pitch at which Natasha starts reaching for the handcuffs, but with the crackle of a shitty cell signal, it’s just painful. “Perfect! Natasha, we need to adjust some of our plans.”

Natasha closes her eyes and leans her forehead against the glass. “Yes, dear,” she says, because Laura’s way scarier than Madame B. had ever been, and getting Clint and Toni to hook up has been a pet project of hers for years. “May as well badger and guilt Rhodes into this too,” she says, and feels instantly better the second Rhodey’s face goes ashen and round-eyed. “He’s been Toni’s brother for twenty five years. No one knows her better.”

“You should come to dinner too,” Laura says happily, and Natasha grins at Rhodes’ glare. “We need to put our heads together and figure out how to make this happen.”

“We should probably deal with Rogers first,” Rhodes says with another dire look at Natasha. “As fun as the rest of this high school stuff is, he’s still running around with Wilson and Barnes.”

“Someone go pry Toni off Clint then,” Natasha says with a smirk, and tries not to feel guilty at Laura’s dismayed huff. “There’s time for that later, honey,” she says, tapping the phone back to internal sound and sliding her earpiece into her ear. “Rhodes is right. We have business to take care of first.”

“And then, Operation Clintoni engages.”

“We’re not calling it that,” Natasha says firmly, and starts running through her mental pre-op checklist. “I love you.”

“Maybe you’re not,” Laura says, and Natasha bites her lip at the playful note in her tone. She really wishes she was at home to take advantage of it, but there are rogue superheroes to deal with. “I love you too.” The tiniest of hesitations, then, “Stay safe?”

Natasha allows a soft, warm smile to curve her mouth, because as often as she’s heard that worried note, as often as she’s been reassured that she has someone who cares about her well-being above almost all others, it never fails to melt the core of her icy Black Widow heart. “Always,” she says softly. “I can’t say the same about Rogers and his merry men.”

“Kick some ass, Romanoff. Call me when you’re done. We have scheming to do.”

“Goodbye Laura,” Natasha says firmly, and ends the call. She presses her lips together and finishes her pre-op checklist, because there isn’t a chance in hell this isn’t going to come back to bite her in the ass at some point. The things she does for love. She turns to find both Hope and Rhodes staring at her with amusement. “What?”

Rhodes shakes his head slowly. “You and Laura,” he says, and mops his face with a swipe of his hand. “I still can’t wrap my head around it, but hell… if it gets that sad-ass expression off Toni’s face, I’m all for it.”

**oOoOoOo**

Her equilibrium goes right out the fucking window at the first sight of Clint in his new gear. No one has the right to look that delicious, and she’s never been more grateful for the fact that her armor is full-body and hides her face, because he’s never looked leaner or more competent and it is _doing things to her_.

_Married,_ she chants. _Married, married, married._

The appearance of Captain America, Falcon, Scarlet Witch, Ant-Man, and the Winter Soldier geared for war and looking stubborn is, hilariously and pathetically, a welcome distraction, and she seizes on it as fast as she can.

“Wow,” she says in the most casual tone she can muster, alighting as delicately as a butterfly and letting the helmet flow back from her face as Rhodey touches down beside her. “It’s so weird how you run into people at the airport. Don’t you think that’s weird?”

“Definitely weird,” Rhodey agrees.

Steve relaxes, but Toni isn’t so foolish as to believe that this isn’t going to end in a slugfest, and she does no such thing. “Toni,” he says, in his Captain America Is Trying To Reason With The Crazy Billionaire voice that always, _always_ sets her teeth on edge, “hear me out. That doctor, that psychiatrist. He’s the one behind all this.”

The migraine starts up again, pounding behind her eyes in the same rhythm it’s been pounding at since she first heard the words _Bucky Barnes._ “The time for me hearing anything you’re saying is over, Steve. Ross gave me 36 hours to bring you in.” She says doesn’t have to fake the frustration or aggravation that floods into her tone. “I already ate up over 24 of that tracking your spangly ass down, so come on. On the quinjet like a grownup. It’s time to adult like champs.”

Steve doesn’t blink, doesn’t flinch, doesn’t anything but give her the same look that just yesterday she informed him makes her want to punch him in his perfect teeth. “You’re after the wrong guy.”

“Your judgement is askew,” she grates out from between gritted teeth. “I don’t know what particular reality you’re living in, Rogers, but in this one? Your old war buddy killed innocent people yesterday.”

Of course _that_ gets a reaction from Steve. “That wasn’t his fault! He’s not responsible for…”

“Killing people?” Clint cuts in smoothly, materializing beside Rhodey, and Toni takes a moment to raise both hands and press her trembling fingers to the bridge of her nose, trying to squeeze the headache out of her skull. “Mind control’s a bitch, Cap. But it doesn’t award blanket pardon. You still have to deal with the fallout.”

“There are five more supersoldiers just like him,” Steve says quietly, after a moment of silence. “I can’t let the doctor get to them, Toni. I just can’t.”

“Is your solution going to be to punch your way out?” Natasha’s voice is above and behind, and Toni glances over her shoulder to see her crouched on a short stack of shipping crates ten feet up. “This wasn’t the point of Sharon’s eulogy. I think you know that. This doesn’t have to go any farther than this.”

And yet, Toni knows it will. Because this is a fight that’s been brewing for a long time. It’s a fight she’d successfully deluded herself into thinking they could avoid, but this is all chickens coming back to roost now. This is all chits coming in for cashing. This is Avenger versus Avenger, and the only person who could stop it has decided this is where his stand is going to be made.

“You’re going to come with us because it’s _us,”_ she says, and desperately wants to reach across the distance between them and shake him until his ears start working again. “We can get Barnes the help he needs. We do not have time for any of this, Steve. We literally don’t. Listen to me and hear what I’m saying. You’re a _hair_ away from being labeled a rogue Enhanced, and once that happens, you’re going to be on your own. None of us will be able to help you anymore.”

For a long moment, she has a flare of optimism, because she can see the doubt in his eyes, she can see him _actually_ thinking about it, and she allows herself the faintest glimmer of hope that it’s not going to end bloody and broken.

So it’s clearly the moment when she should have anticipated the fists would start flying.


	3. Chapter 3

It’s blink-and-you-miss-it, because one minute Toni is yelling at Steve, and the next, they’re charging at each other and Clint doesn’t know how the fuck it happened, but hey, he’s game and Toni gave him brand new toys to play with, and that’s all he really needs to be happy.

Well, he corrects a moment later, sighting down the shaft of an arrow that is sure to be the first of many he’s going to launch at his friends before this shitshow is done, he was pretty fucking happy just standing with Toni sobbing into his shirt earlier, the smell of her hair in his nose and her breath across his throat, but that’s a ship he knows has long since sailed.

Because Toni’s been wrapped up with Pepper for years, and even if she wasn’t, there’s still that enormous hearts-in-eyes crush she has on Star-Spangled Muscles. And he’s totally not trying to shoot Steve Rogers in the ass for that. Maybe once. Okay, twice. Three times, tops. He swears.

And then it’s over almost before it’s begun.

The crash of half a dozen cars coming down on Toni’s head is the most blood-freezing, ball-shriveling sound he’s ever heard.  He’s got an arrow nocked and loosed before he even realizes he’s pulled it out of his quiver, is vaulting over shipping crates and skidding across discarded airport machinery when he registers Wanda jerking and twitching as the taser arrow does its job and drops her ass to the pavement.

“Toni!” It’s barely recognizable as his voice, and he starts running like Satan himself is on his ass.

He looses another pair of arrows as he high-tails it across the tarmac, sees the blue restraint field spark between the arrow points buried in the ground on either side of Wanda. He shifts his attention upwards as Sam swoops low over the pile of crushed cars, and looses another arrow, which Sam spins abruptly left to avoid.  

He skids to a halt, heart in his throat and nausea in his gut, hand white-knuckling around the grip of his bow as he frantically scans for the gleam of red and gold, a shine of a blue-white arc reactor, under the heap of twisted metal and rubber and glass.

Relief floods through him as the distinctive whine of repulsors spins up, and he hops back into a safe distance as the sleek, streamlined form of Iron Man explodes out from under the cars. “Okay,” she says, in a no-nonsense, irritable voice slightly underlaid with mechanical tones. “Toni’s done fucking around.”

She only ever goes third-person pronouns when she’s feeling exceptionally homicidal, and that’s not something Clint should find hot.

But, as his body is eager to remind him, he totally does.

**oOoOoOo**

In the end, they get Sam Wilson, Wanda Maximoff and some two-bit lock-jockey named Scott Lang. After putting three and one together and coming up with thirteen, JSOC commandos pick up Sharon Carter for collaboration and even though the Sokovia Accords are UN-legislated, Ross has them all whisked away to supermax prison before Toni can do so much as blink.

What they don’t have is Rogers and Barnes.

They also don’t have due process, but unlike the glaring omission of two supersoldiers in the day’s catch, this is something Toni can work on solving. The Raft is going a bit far, in her opinion, and she’s already got an army of Stark Industries lawyers working round-the-clock on injunctions and court orders and whatever the hell else the incarcerated Avengers are going to need to get them appropriate treatment and fair proceedings.

Wanda takes to being collared about as well as Toni thought she would. It’s not Toni’s tech; Toni’s not wild about power-suppressing collars because holy hell, is that rife for corruption and abuse. She’s not an idiot, though; Wanda’s unstable and isn’t shy about going all out. Toni made damned sure to check the collar over for glitches and nasty surprises before she let them lock it around Wanda’s throat, but around Wanda’s throat it went.

After Ultron, after Sokovia, after Lagos, after having half a dozen cars dropped on her fucking head, Toni’s done giving Wanda the benefit of the doubt.

She checks her messages while seated at the conference table, waiting for the erstwhile Avengers to shuffle into the room in shackles and chains. Her phone is brand new, sleeker and better than the last, barely out of the box and still with ninety percent of its battery, but at the very first number she sees in her caller’s list, she wants to break it against a concrete wall just like its predecessor.

_You have one new message._

“Toni,” Clint says in her voicemail, because he still can’t take the fucking hint and drop back off the face of the earth again, leaving her in far-pining peace forever. “Laura wants you to come to dinner on Sunday.  I’ve been informed to inform you that this is a non-optional social function. Pick you up at 4, unless you’re coming with Natasha, Hope and Rhodey. Call me.  I’ll have my phone on.”

She has to fumble with her off hand, because the other, good one is up in a sling with stress fractures in three places, but she manages to do enough tapping and gesturing to hack into Clint’s voicemail. It’s such a coward move, but Toni can’t not call, and she can’t talk to Clint, so her options are limited here.

“Barton, thank Laura for her lovely invitation, but I’m busy on Sunday,” she says, and it’s only partly a lie. “Steve and his Fun Time Posse have generated a horrendous amount of paperwork that is going to keep me sitting on my fabulous ass answering questions and writing reports for the foreseeable future. It’s times like this I really miss Phil. That man loved forms in triplicate. Anyway. Busy, Barton. So thanks. But no can do.”

 _And that’s the end of that,_ she thinks, a little wistfully, but mostly with finality, ends the call, then glances up at the near-distant banging of locks turning and doors opening. “Finally,” she grumbles, and gestures to the small army of lawyers she brought with her as the Raft guards lead Sam Wilson in. “Time to justify your ridiculous salaries, ladies and gents.”

**oOoOoOo**

It isn’t the easiest thing in the world, because she’s never had a rapport with Sam and Wanda hates her guts and if not for the process of elimination, she wouldn’t know Scott from Adam, but she wears Sam down until he coughs up a location in Siberia where he thinks Steve and Barnes have gone.

And time is of the essence, but she hesitates anyway, waits until Sam’s led away and Sharon’s brought in, and it hurts Toni to see how dull and listless her cousin’s eyes have gone. Out of all of them, Sharon’s the only one who looks happy to see her so Toni ignores all proper protocol and the flinty-eyed glare of the guards in favor of going around to the prisoner’s side of the table to hug her tight.

“I thought this is what Aunt Peggy would want,” Sharon says softly, when Toni’s back on her own side of the table. “I thought she’d want me to help Steve.”

Toni runs her hands through her hair, blows out a breath in a long, deep sigh. “I know,” she says tiredly. “I spend a good deal of my life trying and failing to live up to what I think Aunt Peg would want me to do.” She scratches through her hair, then shakes it back over her shoulders. “Is he really in Siberia, or is Wilson just jerking me around?”

“That’s the mission, as far as I know,” Sharon replies. Then she bites her lip, looks down for a moment, and back up. “I’m sorry.”

Toni blinks. “For what?”

“For not calling you. I just…” She shrugs, smiles a little bitterly, and spreads her hands to indicate the manacles on her wrists. “I thought I was doing the right thing.”

Toni’s smile softens, and she reaches out to squeeze Sharon’s hands. “I know. It’s easy to think that when it’s Captain America doing the asking.” She shakes her head and pulls her hands back. “I’ve got to go,” she says, “but I have very expensive lawyers who are well-paid to be happy they’re staying to get you out of here.”

“Stay safe, Toni,” Sharon says.

“Safety’s overrated,” Toni replies loftily, and hurries away before she talks herself into staying and making a scene until Sharon’s released from custody.

**oOoOoOo**

_You have one new message._

_“It’s funny how my phone didn’t ring once and yet I have a new message. Way to adult, honey. I also guess you don’t understand the meaning of_ non-optional. _It means it’s not optional. Pick you up at four. Don’t make me hunt you down, Stark. I may be retired, but I know people who owe me favors, and I don’t think you want Natasha to have to come find you with me. She gets cranky when Sunday dinner is interrupted.”_

Toni’s had a lot of time in the air to play and replay Clint’s message, to debate the merits of calling him back, to finally just tell him in no uncertain terms that she would be so much happier if he just lost her number and pretended he’d never known her to begin with.

But every time she starts to call, she thinks about the way his voice curled around the word “honey” in his message, thinks about how good it had felt to collapse into him at the airport, to let him take the weight even for a few minutes, how unbearable it would actually be to cut him out once and for all, and she can’t bring herself to do it.

“FRIDAY, access Barton’s voicemail service,” she says, banking over the frozen tundra to where a cooling heat signature indicates the location of the quinjet Steve and Barnes had stolen from the airport. “I want to leave him a message.”

“Ready, boss,” FRIDAY says a minute later, and Toni swallows hard at the sound of his voice on the recorded greeting.

She’s so fucking pathetic. If only TMZ could see her now.

“Clint, I’m not coming. I really wish I could, but I can’t. So give Laura my regrets and save your gas. I’m out of the country at the moment, and probably will be for the foreseeable future, and where I’m going, cell service is super shitty. Another time, maybe. Goodbye.”

 _Maybe,_ she thinks miserably as she lands in front of the quinjet and stares up at the squat, ugly bunker up the hill, _this is enough of a breach of the Accords that Ross will just chuck me in the Raft and I won’t have to worry about having to play phone tag with him ever again._

She knows she’s not that lucky, though.

She sighs, and starts moving towards the ajar front door of the bunker. “Alright, Rogers,” she says tiredly. “We’ll try it your way.” As usual.

**oOoOoOo**

Laura’s been looking forward to this dinner for a long time, has planned it a hundred times in her head, and knows it’s just going to be perfect now that it’s actually happening. She hums along with the radio as she turns into the driveway leading to their farm, in such a ridiculously good mood she feels like she might burst from it.

Clint has materialized on the porch by the time she’s parked and turned the engine off, and pops the trunk hatch before she can get out of the car. Her smile slips, her good mood dims, at the expression on his face: hurt, resigned, with a thin chipper veneer painted over it. “What happened?” she says softly, pocketing her keys and moving to haul groceries out with him.

“Toni’s not coming,” he says, short and clipped, and gives her a smile that looks real but she isn’t buying it for a second. “She’s out of the country, she says. Said to give you her regrets and maybe another time.”

Laura bites her lip. “Maybe she meant that,” she says, though she’s pretty sure it’s a long shot she’s right. “Maybe she really is busy?”

Clint shakes his head, gives her another smile. This one is his semi-bitter sideways smirk, which Laura never likes seeing. “She used the word ‘goodbye’, Laura,” he says. “She never uses it unless she means it. So I think the message is pretty clear. It’s fine. One less for dinner. The leftovers will get eaten, I’m sure.”

He takes an armload of groceries and hauls them into the house, while Laura chews her lip and takes note of the tension in his back, the slump in his shoulders. She knows it’s a ridiculous reaction, but she can’t help feeling guilty anyway, because if he hadn’t put himself on the line all those years ago to make sure their family was protected, he’d have gotten what he wanted a lot sooner than this.

He re-emerges from the house to get more bags and she wordlessly passes him the sack in her arms, waits until he grabs the rest from the back, and then closes the hatch while he returns inside.  And that’s when she hauls out her cell phone, scrolls through her contacts until she finds where she stashed Pepper’s phone number, and thumbs the Send button.

Time to haul out the big guns.


	4. Chapter 4

The thing Pepper likes best about her black suede Kenedy Jimmy Choo stilettos is how very authoritative they sound against the Raft’s floor when she’s steamrolling her way through all the lesser JCTC agents trying to stall her.  There’s half a dozen baffled and bewildered men in white shirts and black neckties trailing in her wake, most of whom are highly trained, but none of whom are more than twenty-five, and Pepper’s spent more than half their lives  competently dealing with first Queen Diva Toni Stark and then with an intransigent Board full of judgemental douchebags.

Baby agents in their first real posting never had a chance.

Maria’s footfalls, however sharp and efficient, don’t sound nearly as badass, and Pepper makes a mental note to get her some really expensive shoes at the earliest opportunity. Their anniversary is coming up.  Perfect excuse to spoil her rotten.

But what Maria lacks in stylish heels, she makes up for in gatekeeping the shit out of Pepper’s valuable time, one of the many things Pepper loves her for. Three more agents scurry out of the shadows of side offices to slow her down, but Maria turns each one aside with a bare minimum of words until she’s now trailing nine low-level pencil pushers behind her.

She’s saving all her energies for the first Ross that shows his face. Best case, it’s the blond one. She’s loaded for honey badger, but it’d be much easier for her to have to stare down a grizzly instead.

Strangely, neither Everett nor Thaddeus make an appearance, and Pepper’s a little disappointed. She’d been looking forward, just a little, to seeing how she squared up against old Thunderbolt’s legendary assholery. She’s fond of Bruce, and had planned on enjoying doing her damnedest to verbally tear Ross a new orifice on his behalf.

“Make a note,” she says to Maria as she strides down the halls towards the conference room the platoon of lawyers Toni’d left behind described in their hourly briefings to SI headquarters. “I want to pull and review all government contracts Stark Industries still holds, because if a top secret supermax prison can only produce flunky middle management when a VIP shows up, there’s reason to be concerned about the safety of our proprietary technology.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Maria says, over the soft beep-tap of her nails on the interface of her ever-present tablet.  “The command structure here does seem a touch on the shoddy side.” Her grin is slight, but vicious. “What’s to stop anyone from getting in and doing what they want?”

“Not a damned thing,” Pepper says mildly, and closes her hand around the handle for the conference room door.

Heads turn as she strides in, popping the single closed button on her slate grey suit jacket. She skims her gaze over the faces of the SI lawyers Toni hijacked from Legal, noting with pride and approval that every single one of them are experienced and expensive. _Only the best,_ she thinks a touch bitterly as she lights on the faces of Wanda, Sam, Scott and Sharon, _for people who don’t deserve a single shred of Toni’s endless generosity._

She moves to the center seat, and Reynolds gets his ass up to let her have it without her having to do more than twitch an eyelid in his direction. “Ladies, gentlemen,” she says firmly as she places her briefcase on the table, smooths her skirt under her legs and seats herself, “I’d like the room for a few minutes.”

The orderly, wordless, immediate compliance her employees show will never get old.

As she waits for the lawyers to file out and close the door behind them, she eyes them all. Sharon, at least, has the courtesy to look embarrassed and repentant, so Pepper decides then and there to go a little easier on her than she planned the others. “How are you doing, Sharon?” she asks, and doesn’t have to force as much warmth as she thought she would have to.

Sharon’s smile is quick and self-deprecating. “There’ve been better days, Pep,” she says wryly.  “How are you doing?”

Pepper shrugs one shoulder, smiles slightly. “There’ve been better days, Sharon. You’re being treated well?”

“Well enough. I’ve had worse. Three squares, a bed and a fancy pot is a step up compared to some of my former accommodations.” She clears her throat, fiddles with hem of her prison shirt, then looks back up. “How’s Toni doing?”

Pepper takes a breath, lets it out silent and slow. “Part of why I’m here, Sharon,” she says, then  glances at the door when she hears the lock catch.   

“We’re good, ma’am,” Maria says, moving away from the door and setting her tablet in front of the chair to Pepper’s right. “Thirty seconds on the white noise generator, and the room will be completely secure.”

Pepper nods at her, folds her hands on the table. Maria slides Pepper’s briefcase in front of her, pops the latches and pulls out the spherical device to activate and set in the middle of the table.

Only after Maria gives her the final nod that any recording devices within the room — hellaciously illegal in this situation, but Pepper’s confidence in the Raft’s staff to adhere to judicial standards couldn’t go any lower — have been neutralized does she clear her throat, eye each of them in turn, and say softly, “Who wants to go first and tell me just what the hell you were thinking?”

**oOoOoOo**

The bunker is just plain creepy, and every last hair on the back of Toni’s neck is standing at attention. Though, she allows in the privacy of her mind, no doubt some of that alertness is because Bucky Barnes is behind her carrying a really big rifle which, less than an hour ago, she had pointed at her head.  

Steve leads the way, cautious and alert, moving slowly with his shield defensively raised before him. Unease rolls through her as she glances at the tight lines of his shoulders under the muted blue of his uniform, and her teeth grind. There’s a mutinous part of her mind that’s screaming at her to just shoot them both and drag them back to Ross in chains — there were some back in the room three hallways ago — but she’s trying here, really trying, so she clenches her teeth together and keeps moving behind him instead of doing the smart thing and drop his ass like a sack of bricks.

Steve stops short at a door through which there is only darkness, arm shooting up with his hand in a fist, and Toni freezes in midstep. Steve glances over his shoulder, then makes some arcane hand gesture Toni knows she should understand, but she never did pay that much attention in tactical drills. Bucky seems to understand though, and ghosts past her to disappear through the door.

When he reappears a few moments later, it’s with the strangest look on his face, disturbed and uncertain, lost and maybe a little afraid. Toni has a bad, bad feeling about the cause of that expression, and an even worse feeling about what’s coming.

\---

There’s a yawning, sick spin lurching through her stomach as the laptop starts playing a video clearly taken from a security camera, and it only gets deeper when her eyes flick down to the timestamp and she sees the date of her parents’ death. _I know that road…_ she thinks, numb and distant, and her vision is going spotty and grey. She can’t breathe, she can’t breathe, _cantbreathecantbreathe_

_klikwrhee-BOOM_

She sucks in a deep breath as the laptop disappears from its pedestal in a flash of blue-white light, vision spins as oxygen floods back, lowers her arm from firing position, clenches a fist around the warm repulsor port. From the corner of her eye, she sees Steve watching her carefully, and his expression is one she’s familiar with. It’s the look of someone who’s guilty and caught, backed into a corner, resigned to and dreading the coming consequences.

She sees it every day in her mirror.

“Did you know?” Her voice is ugly and low, outraged and betrayed and oh-so-tightly leashed to fragile self-control.  

Steve swallows. “I didn’t know it was him.”

“Don’t bullshit me, Rogers,” she snarls, turns to face him completely, and the last touchstone she has for right and wrong, morals and ethics, crumbles to dust around her. She knows the answer, she can see it in his eyes, but she forces the question out anyway. “Did. You. Know.”

His gaze is steady, stone, sickened. “Yes.”

She reels away, half-collapses on the pedestal that had held her parents’ snuff film before she repulsored the shit out of it, clutches it like a lifeline, and rests her head on her wrists, the metal cold as ice to her flushed, overwarm skin.

A scuff, a shuffle towards her. Then one backwards. A tentative: “Toni?”

Her fractured wrist throbs sharply, the pain bringing abrupt clarity back.  “We’re done, Steve.” There’s finality in her tone, mechanical and distant, and she straightens, focuses very carefully about refitting her gauntlets on her forearms.

She can’t look at either one of them. If she does, she’s going to kill them both.

“Toni… I’m sorry. I...”

She shakes her head slowly, smiles without humor. “No, Rogers,” she says. “You’re not sorry. You’re just sorry you got caught lying.”

“I’m sorry,” Barnes says quietly, and Toni glances at him, standing as still as a statue, unblinking and watching her. Rage screams through her head, and she has to turn away.

“It… wasn’t you.” It’s the hardest truth she’s ever forced out of her mouth, and it drains her of _everything_ to say it, takes the rage and the betrayal and leaves her hollow and cold.“Just don’t ever come near me. _Ever._  I don’t want to see either of you again.”

“Toni…”

If she listens to him any longer, she’s going to turn around, drive shining gold and gleaming red through Rogers’ fucking teeth, and the fistfight that prematurely halted in Halle/Leipzig is going to end with someone dead. “Go fuck yourself, Steve,” she says tiredly, and starts back towards the entrance of the bunker.

**oOoOoOo**

_You have one new message._

_“Toni, Cap came back from Russia with Barnes. He said he ran into you there, but he was awfully close mouthed about it, and it doesn’t take someone with my level of perception to figure out that something pretty bad went down. I’ve got your back, just want to remind you of that. Team Iron Man, all the way, babe. Call me, okay? I’m here for you, if you need me.”_

**oOoOoOo**

_You have one new message._

_“Toni, it’s been three days, and no one’s heard from you. FRIDAY’s been keeping tabs on hospital patient rolls and emergency law enforcement channels from around the world, but you’ve pretty well just disappeared.  And that’s cool, babe. If that’s what you need to do to get through whatever it is happened, you do that. Just… call me, okay?  I’m worried and I just want to know you’re alive.”_

**oOoOoOo**

_You have one new message._

_“Don’t fucking do this to us, Stark. Call someone. Tell us you’re alive. It’s been over a week since anyone saw you. We’re worried. We miss you.”_

**oOoOoOo**

_You have one new message._

_“I’m not giving up this easily, Toni. Sooner or later, you’ll have to pick up the phone and talk to someone. I can wait all year, babe. Another two weeks isn't gonna kill me.”_

**oOoOoOo**

_You have one new message._

_“Goddammit, enough. Fucking call me, Toni.”_

**oOoOoOo**

_You have one new message._

“I’m alive. I’m fine. I’m busy. Stop calling. I’m done.”

**oOoOoOo**

She should have known that he wasn’t going to leave her alone. And out of everyone she knows, she should have known he’d be the first one to look for her at the Manor. It’s the last place she’d ever willingly go, so of fucking course it’s the first place Clint looks.

He’s waiting in the living room, in jeans and a leather jacket, hands shoved into his pockets and a duffel bag at his feet. She eyes him from the doorway, silently leaning against the jamb, then sighs and moves towards him like a woman being led to her execution. “I don’t think you understand the meaning of the words _stop calling,”_ she says tiredly. “It means stop calling.”

He shrugs, smiles gently at her. “I don’t see any phones involved here.”

Her eyes flick down to the duffel, then back up to his face. “Moving in?”

“No. I took the liberty of collecting your shit from the Tower. You’re moving out.”

An eyebrow arches, and she dredges up the most unimpressed look she can muster.  “Awfully presumptuous of you. Where, pray tell, am I moving to?”

“The farm. Laura, Natasha, Hope, Pepper and Maria are being very insistent. Laura, in fact, is making Sunday dinner. Non-optional social function.”

She’s already shaking her head, backing up, walling off, before he’s done speaking. “No,” she says. “Uh uh. I don’t need an intervention here, Barton. I’m perfectly fine.”

“The fuck you are,” he says, and she blinks at the speed in which the humor and smile have disappeared. He hauls his hands out of his pockets, swipes out at her, catches her wrist and hauls her into him.

His arms close around her back, slow and tight. Of its own accord, her nose finds its way to the pulse point under his jaw, and a tremor runs through her limbs. “I really fucking hate you,” she mumbles into his throat, and gives in because she’s too tired to fight. There are too many holes in the emotional dam holding her in check, and she ran out of fingers to plug them with weeks ago.

 _Married,_ she chants by rote.  _Married married married._

“I know you do, Toni,” he murmurs against her temple, “and I came anyway.” A hand threads into her hair, and the warmth washing from how protected and supported she knows she is in this moment washes over her, cracks the ice numbing her deep down in her chest. Her eyes burn and she shifts her weight, sliding her arms around his waist, clinging to his solidity. 

And cries silently into his shirt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At least one more to go. Possibly two. :)
> 
> Maybe a touch bleaker than I intended, but that's the worst of it now.


	5. Chapter 5

It takes Toni the better part of a week at the Barton farm before she feels like doing anything but sitting on the porch swing with a cold cup of coffee, staring off into the distance. Most of the time, Clint’s hanging around somewhere in her peripheral vision, so she never feels alone, but other times, Natasha sits and brushes her hair, or Hope paints her toenails, or Rhodey’s got a brotherly arm slung around her shoulders, or Laura chats with her about nothing particularly important.

The day she wakes up curled up on the couch with Clint wrapped around her, solidly asleep and warm, is the day she decides she’s done enough wallowing and is determined to get on with the business of living.

 _Married,_ runs the constant refrain in her head. _Married married married._

She has no idea why Laura hasn’t gone nuclear over how much Toni seems to be coopting her husband, but in the end she chalks it up the fact that Laura’s simply too goddamn nice for her own good. Best Toni can figure, Laura isn’t throwing fits because Toni’s in a fragile place and needs a rock to anchor to, so she’s going to let Toni hang off Clint as long as Toni needs, because it’s been helping.

But Toni, easing out of the circle of Clint’s arms and away from the warm depths of the quilt someone’d thrown over them, can’t keep going like that, because she’s not going to be responsible for splitting what is an adorable and frankly fucking awesome family unit apart by being too clingy and needy. She’s probably borderline to ruining everything as it is, and it’s time to stop.

So she throws herself into the work to get the Avengers out of the Raft. Most of the heavy lifting has been done already, but there are always complicated knots to untangle, always last minute bureaucratic red tape bullshit to sift through, and Toni does nothing if not excel in those particular areas.

She meets with all four of them, comes away from only one conversation, the one she has with Sharon, with any sense of satisfaction. Wanda in particular is mulish and recalcitrant, but Toni no longer has the patience for her histrionics, reminds her that it was either getting locked in her room or locked in Gitmo, and it’s not too late for Gitmo if she’s that dead set on being a bitch. It’s probably beneath her, holding it over her head like that, but Toni’s taken a lot of shit from Wanda in the last couple of years, and she’s flat out done doing it.

Scott Lang, on the other hand, sneers at her surname, declares that she can’t be trusted because Hank Pym said so. Toni shakes her head slowly, eyes never leaving his, and asks him how many people not named Stark does he see here trying to get his freedom on nothing more than a childhood friend vouching for him. Asks him if Hank Pym is so exalted and righteous, where the fuck is he with Scott in jail?

That shuts him up quick.

Sam is Rogers’ man through and through, talks to her about stress and trauma, and while the last thing Toni thinks he should be doing is playing counselor in the wake of being disastrously unable to provide rational, calm advice to the patron saint of not dealing with his shit, she knows it’s going to be futile to argue with him. So she doesn’t even try, just endures his angry stare with her very best nonplussed look and crossed arms.

She barges into Everett Ross’s office before she leaves, and refuses to budge until she’s dictated the terms of surrender for Bucky Barnes, who is still at large somewhere in the world. He might be the second to last face she ever wants to see again, but deep down where rationality still has a foothold, she knows it wasn’t his fault and he’s just as much of a victim in all this as she is.

In due course, she’s got Reynolds, Avengers legal team lead, summoned from the conference room where the SI lawyers have set up semi-permanent base camp from which to regularly terrorize the JTCT staff. When he gives his approval to the agreement, and Everett signs, Toni scrawls her name too, and James Buchanan Barnes is officially her problem.

Steve can still go fuck himself.

**oOoOoOo**

Clint knows he’s in trouble when Pepper breezes into the barn in her ridiculously over-priced and impractical shoes with Maria trailing ever-faithfully behind her. He straightens from where he’d been bent over the tractor engine, and sees his life flash before his eyes at first glimpse of the unamused, resolute look on her face.

He glances at Maria, appealing to her with his eyebrows to tell him what the fuck is going on, but she just grins smugly at him and folds her arms around the tablet in her hands. He signals back death and retribution, but Maria’s unfazed.

Pepper stops right in front of him, towering over him in her four-inch stilettos, and her hands go to her hips. Everything, from the windblown crown of her head, to the tips of her peach-painted toes screams irritation and impatience. If he knew what he did wrong, he’d be begging for forgiveness already.

“Good morning, Pepper,” he says, friendly but cautious, and wipes the grease from his hands with an old rag. “Is there something I can do for you?”

“You can tell me when you intend to stop fucking around, Clint,” she says.

Her voice is calm but the expletive takes him aback because Pepper _never_ swears. It takes him a second to recover, and he discards half a dozen smartass replies that spring to mind in the interim. “I’m sorry?”

“She asked,” Maria says, enunciating clearly, “when you intend to stop fucking around."

He blinks. “I wasn’t aware I _was_ fucking around, Pepper. What the hell are you talking about?”

Pepper’s scowl deepens. “Don’t be cute. With Toni, Barton. When are you going to pull your head out of your ass and put the both of you out of your respective miseries?”

He’s confused. No, he’s lost. Because it sounds like she’s suggesting…. “She’s my friend, Pepper,” he says carefully, because this is one area in which he really, really doesn’t want to be misunderstood. “We’re friends. I don’t fuck around with that.”

Maria clucks her tongue and shakes her head. “Oh Barton,” she says in amusement. “For a guy who sees everything, you really don’t pay attention to what’s important, do you?”

He blinks again, and something shifts in his vision, the body language Maria’s displaying towards Pepper, the way Pepper’s unconsciously turning towards Maria, and epiphany slaps him with a ten pound sledgehammer. “Wait, I thought you and Toni were…”

Pepper shakes her head and she still looks unamused, but her hands drop away from her hips as she relaxes. “Not for some time now, Clint,” she says. “Not since six months after Ultron.”

His understanding of the timeline of events abruptly skews, leaves him scrambling for stable ground. “I don’t understand,” he finally says. “Why are you telling me this?”

“There are a lot of reasons Toni and I never worked out,” Pepper says and twists her pen in her fingers pensively. “Most of them are none of your business, but some of them, oh, some of them were definitely _all you_.”

What the hell is he supposed to do with that? How the hell is he supposed to interpret that?

“Toni does everything to the extreme,” she continues. “But I’ve never seen her go to the lengths she has to keep you in her life. Or to avoid you, because Toni tries not to inflict herself on people she cares about. If she hated you, you’d never get rid of her.”

He sinks back against a nearby support beam, because if he doesn’t put his back to something he’s going to fall down. He stares at her in absolute bafflement. “What are you saying, Pepper? That Toni’s in love with me?”

Pepper shakes her head. “No,” she says in amusement. “Nothing as simplistic as that.  When we were together, it was always Clint this, Clint that, and the way her face lit up…” She smiles a little soft, a little bitter, a little wistful. “Let’s just say I never saw that kind of joy from her. I do, on the other hand, see it daily from Maria. Toni's been _devoted_ to you for years, Clint. I’m honestly surprised you didn’t know before now.”

He swipes a hand down his face, thinking furiously, realigning assumptions and impressions, reassembling the picture to bring it back into focus. “I thought she and Rogers..?”

“Toni’s about as likely to date Captain America as she is her own father,” Pepper says bluntly. “It’s complicated for her, but no. That’s never been her interest.”

More pieces shift, rearrange, get discarded. “She never said anything.”

“As far as she knows, Clint,” Maria cuts in, “you and Laura Barton are happily married.”

And there it is, the whole picture, sharp and clear and in technicolor. “... I need a new code name,” he finally says, slightly strangled. “Cos I have clearly and spectacularly failed to live up to one I currently have.”

“We’ll work on that,” Pepper murmurs, and holds her hand out to Maria without looking. Maria puts a manilla folder in Pepper’s hands, and Pepper holds it out to him. “She’s looking for Barnes.”

He all but snatches the folder and flips it open, skims the JTCT and Avengers-branded documentation inside. “Is it revenge, or..? No. She struck a deal. Jesus, woman. What are you playing at?”

“Doesn’t matter, Hawkeye,” Pepper says, gently stressing the code name, and his head snaps around to her. “She needs backup. You’re it.” She hesitates, eyes him up and down and he’s distinctly feeling like a cut of meat in a butcher shop window. “Wear the black suit. She really likes that one.”

“I’m retired,” he says, the last bit of protest he has left, and it's a weak one. “I haven’t signed the Accords. Only reason they didn’t throw my ass in the Raft with the others is because of what side of the airport I was standing on.”

“Funny,” Maria says, and the self-congratulation is unbearable. “The Avengers never actually received your retirement paperwork, so we’ve just been treating you as if you were on extended leave, and you may not remember signing the Accords, but your signature is still there. You're clear and green.”

He isn’t sure whether to be pissed at the manipulations going on around him, or relieved, but settles for a mix of both. “So I’m still active duty and my ass is covered legally. What exactly do you want me to do then, _boss?_ ”

Pepper leans forward, until her nose is almost touching Clint’s and pins him with the hardest, most intimidating glare he’s seen this side of Natasha Romanoff. “Go with her, have her back, don’t fuck up. After that? Whatever you do, she's already yours. She just needs you to convince her you're already hers."

**oOoOoOo**

It's weird suiting up without the armor, and despite the Starkweave tactical suit currently hugging her curves, she feels naked without gold-titanium alloy encasing her. But where she's going and what she's doing requires a lot more subtlety than Iron Man normally allows, so she leaves Bleeding Edge behind and instead squeezes herself into one of Natasha's spare uniforms, and locks the repulsor glove bracelets in place of the suit’s standard Widow's Bites.

She feels like a stranger as she crosses the helipad at the compound and heads for the prepped quinjet, someone other than herself. Someone that might have been an agent of SHIELD once upon a time.

 _A lot of things would have been different if I'd gone into SHIELD instead of SI,_ she thinks wistfully. _Everything would be different. No Iron Man. No Ultron. No arc reactor. No Chitauri. No Avengers. No Sokovia, no Lagos, no Johannesburg. I could have rooted out HYDRA with JARVIS before they set fire to the world._

_I could have been with Clint._

“Stop it,” she hisses at herself, shaking her head sharply to throw those thoughts out of her head before they can root deeper. “He's married. Move on, for fuck’s sake. Otherwise, this only ends in tragedy.”

She turns her attention to the quinjet again, finds herself slowing her hurried trot, faltering to a stop. Because Clint's waiting for her at the boarding ramp, dressed in that sinfully tight black uniform, bow in hand, duffel at his feet, with a smile and the wind ruffling through his hair.

Her mouth goes dry and a storm of butterflies erupts in her stomach at the look in his eyes, heated, interested, assessing. It's like shifting lead blocks to move her feet forward, but she's helpless to do anything but get pulled towards him by the sheer force of tension between them.

She halts a pace in front of him, licks her lips, and watches his gaze snap to her mouth as she does so. “Hi.”

His mouth is on hers before she can register the press of his hands on either side of her face, and her knees sag as a broken, desperate, involuntary noise breaks out of her throat. His reply is a guttural moan, deep and harsh, and then her legs are around his waist and her back is against the quinjet, his weight pressing her down and his hands tight in her hair.

“Hi,” he whispers hoarsely, and she has to bite her lip to stop the pitchy, eager whimpers from erupting as he kisses down her jaw and gently nips her throat. “I'm not married, Toni. I was, and it's a long complicated story I'll tell you later, but the important thing is I'm not married now.”

“You're… not?” It's a squeak, raspy and dry, and she swallows a couple of times, clears her throat, tries to get her thoughts in order. It's next to impossible in this position, because consciously or not, multiple layers of protective gear or not, he's grinding into her and if he doesn't stop, she's gonna have to tear all his clothes off. “Off,” she says desperately, pushing at his shoulder.

He obliges instantly, offering a steadying hand before letting it fall away. “You look _phenomenal_ in Nat’s gear, by the way. You should wear it all the time.”

It takes her several tries to form words once she's caught her breath and straightened her hair and adjusted the fit of her suit around her hips. “What,” she says clearly, “are you doing here?”

“Working. You need a partner. I'm it.”

“How did you… no. Pepper. That bitch.” Toni raises trembling hands and smooths her hair back, closes her eyes and sighs through her nose. “I can't tell her fucking anything.”

His hand settles on the back of her neck, and thumbs a soothing circle just under her ear, and she melts just a little towards him. “You need someone to watch your back. Christ knows what hellhole they're holed up in. You're good, sweetheart, but you need me.”

“I always have,” she says quietly, after a moment of screwing up the courage to admit it. “I just… it's never what I want it to be, Clint. I always end up losing. And when this burns out? I lose my friend. I need you.”

He pulls her to stand in front of him, and she lets him. “Maybe you didn't hear me the first time,” he says, slides his palm across her left cheek, and kisses her again, slow, deep, tender. His hands don't wander, his hips don't grind, it's just his lips and hers, and Toni’s eyes burn and swim behind her closed lids.

This is not the kind of kiss that burns out.

“Why do you always make me cry?” she murmurs, leaning her forehead against his and cupping the back of his head. When she opens her eyes, she finds him watching her, and she's dazzled by the intensity of it. “I really fucking hate you.”

“No you don't,” he replies with a smile, strokes a finger down the side of her face. “S’why I keep coming back. Now, you wanna go work?”

She loops her arms around his neck, smiles down. “May as well,” she says. “We're already dressed for it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not quite done yet. :) More to come.


	6. Chapter 6

“So what’s the plan?” Clint asks, running through the pre-flight checks as the quinjet warms up for flight. “Rogers and Wilson hunted Barnes for close to two years without even coming close to finding him.” 

“Don’t remind me,” she says sourly, slides into the co-pilot’s chair after securing their bags in the cargo hold, and belts in. “Thing is, they used my tech, money, connections, name, whatever, to help them, but they didn’t use me. I am the seventh smartest person on the planet. I could do this in my sleep.”

The steady flicking of switches and buttons pauses for a second. “Huh,” he says in a curious tone of voice, and she glances over with an eyebrow arched. He smirks and goes back to his checks. “I ever tell you how hot you are when you’re being smug and smart?”

She coughs, feels flaming heat flood into her face, and ducks her head, intently studying the panel in front of her. “No,” she manages, gets her hands moving to do her own checks on the controls. “You never have. Is that something I can expect to hear now?”

“Uh huh.” He reaches up to adjust the controls overhead, then drops his hand onto the back of her neck, and she shivers at the feeling of his fingertips tracing over her skin. “As often as I can, because you’re really hot when you’re blushing too. You have a location you wanna hit first?”

“Your lap,” she mutters, and is rewarded with his delighted laughter. She shakes her head, trying to find wherever it is she hid the intelligent, witty Toni she knows she usually is. “As much as I don’t want to go back there ever, except with a really big bomb to blow it the fuck up, I think we should start in Siberia.”

He eyes her as he throttles up the VTOL thrusters and they lift into the sky. “You really think they’ll go back there?” 

He sounds skeptical, and Toni can’t blame him, not really. “There are other reasons,” she replies. “Recovering as many files I can on the Winter Soldier program, for a start. I need hard data if I’m going to figure out how to help Barnes. Plus, the last place anyone would think to look is usually the first place you should try.”

He grins, wicked and wry, and inputs the flight information, then thumbs the autopilot , unbuckles and spins his chair to face her. “Unless you want to do a suborbital hop, we’ve got about six hours in the air. Should be plenty of time to start hashing out tactics and plans.”

She eyes him, licks her lips, then looks up to adjust various controls. “Or,” she says, “I can engage the stealth functions, black out the comms, and we can make out like horny teenagers while we talk about us.”

“I like your idea better.” He holds out a hand, pulls her up when she releases her belt buckles. He tugs her into straddling his lap, smooths his hands over her hips and links his fingers at the small of her back. “Gotta say, I like the idea of there being an ‘us’.”

“Me too,” she says softly and raises her hand, hesitating for only a second before indulging herself in a long-denied fantasy and running her fingers through his hair.  His eyes slide closed and he tilts his head up to follow the stroke of her hand. “I’d like to hear that complicated story about you being married.” 

“It’s not really that complicated,” he murmurs, and turns his head to press a kiss into her wrist. “It was just too complicated to sum up in a few words and I really wanted to get back to kissing you.” He clears his throat. “So, a few years back, Natasha and her girlfriend wanted a kid. We’d been partners for awhile, and she trusted me, so she asked me to be their donor. I liked Laura, and I trusted Nat, so I was happy to. Not long after Coop was born, Director Carter retired, and Director Stoner took over. Not the most gay-friendly guy. Nat and Laura were worried about how to keep her supported if something happened to us, and the easiest solution was for me to marry Laura.”

Realization dawns slowly, but steadily. “So when you say you’re not married now…it’s because marriage equality is now a thing, so you divorced and Laura and Nat are married.”

“Pretty much,” he says, and caresses up her back until he’s cradling the back of her head, and Toni goes boneless and slitted-eyed when he starts massaging circles into the base of her skull. “And Laura and Nat’ll be happy to confirm every word if you need them to. We can call right now.”

It’s not even a question that she ever thought to think. “I trust you,” she says, soft but fervent. “I don’t need Nat to confirm.” She pauses for a moment, then resumes the slow, lazy petting through his hair. “I wish I’d realized it sooner.”

His left eyebrow goes up. “How much sooner?”

“... Midtown,” she says, traces the shape of his cheekbone underneath his eye with a single fingertip. “I dropped you on the roof with the sky full of alien invaders, and you still had my back from twenty blocks away. It made a lasting impression. Plus,” she adds off-handedly, smirks and flicks his nose, “I’ve always appreciated a nice ass in tactical leathers.”

He smirks back. “Definitely agree with that,” he says, drags his hands back down her back to curve around her ass before stroking down her thighs. “I meant what I said earlier. You look fantastic in this. I do my damnedest to not involve my dick when I’m on a job, but I kinda really wanna rip this off you right now.”

She muffles a breathy grunt, but can’t prevent herself from twitching forward and down, smouldering with the tone of his voice. He’s hard between her legs, and her sex throbs, heavy and wet, at the brush of leather over leather. “I’m up for it,” she says, a trifle out of breath, and rocks herself infinitesimally forward again, grins slightly at the nasal whuff of air and the way his fingers tighten and dig into her hips. “But with our luck, we’d both just get naked and ready, and then someone will try to blast us out of the sky.” 

“Mmphf.  Sounds like a thing that would happen to us. Raincheck until we can find a hotel room?”

“First hotel room we find,” she amends, and then because she  miraculously, wonderfully can, she bends her head to kiss him with every scrap of promise she can gather. “I’m glad you’re here with me,” she murmurs in between each kiss. “There’s no one I’d rather have as a partner on this.”

“Good,” he says firmly, and licks his way into her mouth with an authority that turns her limp and pliant in his arms. “Cos you’re stuck with me now. As Natasha would say, _ha ha_ _ sucker.” _

**oOoOoOo**

It was always a long shot, so Toni isn’t terribly surprised when the HYDRA bunker turns up with no evidence that Rogers and Barnes returned since she left them here. She should feel ridiculously exposed in just Nat’s gear, she’s so used to the protection of her Iron Man armors, but she oddly feels empowered and free instead, and she finds herself moving with the sort of graceful stalking stride she's always envied Natasha's ability to pull off. 

Maybe she needs to design a suit like this for herself.

Her stomach clenches when they get to the room where the Winter Soldiers were kept. The bodies of the five supersoldiers are gone, but Toni’s eyes flick to the charred remains of the ancient laptop still scattered on the floor instead of the damaged cryo tubes and attached machinery. She swallows hard and the world tries to yaw away beneath her feet, until all she can see is the road and the time stamp and her father’s car pulling into view. 

Clint’s hand touches her back, abruptly re-anchoring her in the present. She gives him a tight smile and turns her back to the laptop, facing the room where Zemo had locked himself away. There are fresh scars on the door’s surface, and Toni gingerly traces one of them, hissing as the sharp edge bites into her fingertip. “Vibranium,” she says. 

Clint frowns, touches the door, then drops his arm and shakes his head. “Cap, or the King?”

Toni smirks faintly, measuring the distance between the gouges with her fingers. “Could be either, really, but this doesn’t seem like T’Challa’s style. So probably Rogers. This is where Zemo was. He was still here when I left. I don’t know what happened after that.”

Clint tilts his head, looking back over his shoulder to the cryo area. “Bodies were dragged out,” he says, points when she turns to look. “Drag marks there, and there.” He glances at Toni. “If I were Rogers, I’d burn the bodies. Destroy any trace of the formula in their DNA.” 

That's exactly what Toni would do too, but she didn't come here for the bodies. “I’m not interested in looking for a pyre,” she says, and looks around, assessing the state of the machines, calculating how long it would take her to fix even one console, let alone six, extrapolates the profit-loss on definite time versus potential information, and comes up with a number that isn’t justifiable. She sighs. “I don’t think we’re going to find anything here,” she says.

“Probably not,” Clint says, crouches over the shattered laptop, and pokes through the plastic and the wires. He picks up a larger, flatter piece, shaking dirt and debris off it. “What happened to the computer?”

Toni's jaw clenches. “I shot it. It wasn't a very nice computer.”

His eyebrows crawl into his hairline as he stands and bounces the piece on his palm. “I don’t know what it did to make you mad, Toni, but the hard drive seems okay. Am I taking it, or does it get blown up some more?”

The complete video of her parents’ death is on that fucking thing, and Toni’s fist is so tight her nails bite into her palm almost hard enough to draw blood. She desperately wants to tell him to tie it to one of his arrows and make it disappear into the tundra. “There’s a video on there I never want to see again,” she says, tense and tight. “But there might be something important on it, so yeah. Take it. Just… just don’t ask me to carry it.” 

“Wasn’t planning on it.” He slips the hard drive into one of his belt pouches, and walks towards her with a hand outstretched. She holds out her own hand, lets their fingers twine together. “I think we’re done here. You?”

She looks around again, one more once over to make sure she’s not missing anything obvious, then back to him. She smiles faintly. “Yeah. We are. Wanna go find that hotel room now?”

“Hell yes I am. First dibs on the shower though. I know how much hot water you use if you’re first in.”

**oOoOoOo**

She’s nervous. Hell, she’s scared shitless. It’s a novel experience because she’s Toni fucking Stark, and she doesn’t  _ get  _ scared. Not like this, anyway. She’s brash and ballsy and mouthy and doesn’t know when to shut up. She’s nowhere remotely close to the kind of person who hides in the bathroom because she’s paralyzed with anxiety at the thought of walking out into the frankly gorgeous hotel suite in nothing more than a terrycloth robe, discarding it, and climbing naked into bed with an equally naked Clint. 

It’s stupid, and she knows it’s stupid, but the stupidity doesn’t make it less real. The stupidity doesn’t quell the fear that this is going to all blow the spectacular fuck up in her face, and she’ll be left far worse off than she was before it started.

_ Stark men are made of iron.   _

“I’m not a Stark man so shut up, Howard.” she mutters, and sighs through her nose as she reaches for the hair dryer mounted on the wall. 

She settles on her favorite yoga pants and a loose tee-shirt, and spends an inordinate amount of time fiddling with her hair as she stares at her wide-eyed, pale reflection. And then she’s out of even loosely-valid reasons to delay exiting the bathroom, so she sucks in a breath, squares her shoulders, and opens the door. 

Clint’s across the room on the room’s phone, his back turned to her, ordering food from the hotel kitchens, and Toni should be paying attention because she’s picky as fuck about her meals. But Clint’s elected to only wear a pair of sweatpants, and Toni’s whole attention is on the smooth, tanned stretch of his back above the waistline and the shifting of light across his shoulders as he hangs up the phone again. 

“Food will be here in about forty five minutes,” he says, turning towards her, then stops dead and swallows hard. “ _ Damn _ ,” he says, soft and reverent, and holds out a hand to her in invitation. “Look at you.”

She glances down at herself, smiles sardonically, and moves towards him. “No makeup, pyjamas, barefoot, hair not styled,” she says, slides her hand into his and lets him guide her into his arms. “It’s a total horror show.”

“Definitely,” he deadpans, palms her back through the thin shirt, and she shudders and arches into it with a tiny sigh, collapsing forward against him and spreading her hands across his back. “God, you feel good.”

“So do you,” she whispers, and gives in to the impulse to kiss under his jaw, listens to the hitch in his breathing as she does. “I’m terrified, just so you know.”

“Me too, sweetheart,” he replies. “This is the last thing I want to fuck up. You’re too important.” He pulls back just enough to be able to look her in the eye, and he smiles uncertainly. “Think we’ll figure it out?”

She shrugs. “If not,” she says with a smile, “I’m sure Pepper will be happy to yell at us until we do.” She chews on her lip, toying with the hair at the nape of his neck. “Take me to bed,” she says, before she can talk herself out of it, and shivers at how fast his eyes darken. 

“Well, if you insist,” he says and works his hands under her shirt, walks her backwards until her legs brush against the edge of the mattress. 

“I insist,” she says, and hauls him down with her as she lets herself fall onto the bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea how much longer this is going to be, because initially it was 3 chapters, then 5, but here we are at 6, and the story just keeps coming, so settle in, I guess? :)
> 
> Cheers.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Most of this is nothing but smut. You may wish to avert your eyes. :)

Toni's imagined this moment a thousand times in her mind, pictured it a dozen different ways, let herself fantasize any number of steamy scenarios ranging from being bent over her workbench to quick messy fucks in storage closets, but the reality of it takes her goddamn breath away.

Clint’s weight comes down on her a split second after her back hits the mattress, one hand hastily flung from her back to catch himself to prevent crushing her completely, and she shifts her legs apart, wraps them around his waist and squirms until he’s flush against her, pressed into the cleft of her legs. He closes his eyes with a muffled groan, and rocks forward involuntarily. The  _ feel  _ of him, hard and eager, straining behind the thin material of his sweats, is nearly enough to bring her then and there. 

She digs her nails into his shoulders when he does it again, and the noise she makes is half-moan, half-sob, and completely shaken. There's a fine tremor shivering down her spine, spreading into her limbs, pooling in her belly, and she clutches his arms, his neck, opens her mouth eagerly when he swears violently and kisses her like he's planning on devouring her.

He tugs at the hem of her shirt, and she’s halfway out of it before realization slaps her like a splash of ice water, and panic slams through her. She’s got her hand death-gripped on his wrist before she realizes what she’s doing. He freezes instantly, the lust in his face clearing the way for concern. “Sweetheart? Am I doing something wrong?”

She licks her lips, takes a deep breath, forces herself to control the anxiety screaming in her head. “I have scars,” she says hoarsely, tries to find a different way, a better way, to express it, but it’s been a long time since a new lover has seen her with her shirt off, seen the damage she’s suffered. “Thought I put it behind me. Sorry.”

Understanding, compassion, floods into his eyes, and he smooths her shirt back down with gentle, tender strokes. “Babe, no. Don’t apologize. Never apologize. I’m not gonna do anything you don’t want me to do. I can wait. I might have to take a long, long shower if we stop, but we can totally stop, Toni.”

“I don’t want to stop,” she whispers, and caresses through his hair with her hand. “Keep going.”

His forehead furrows, and he slides his hand back under the hem of her shirt, palm spreading warm and broad over her hip. “Are you sure?”

She nestles her head into the mattress and looks up at him, and something tightens painlessly near her heart, warm and bright. “Never been more sure of anything,” she says softly. “I just have some baggage that isn’t as dealt with as I thought it was.”

“I don’t mind your baggage. If you’re sure you want to keep going, can I try something?”

She nods, and it should make her uneasy at how readily she trusts him, but it doesn’t. “Sure.”

She whines just a little as he pulls away, but he grins and tugs her up too, manhandles her until they’re both sitting upright, with her back pressed against his chest and his legs framing hers on either side. “What are you doing?”

He kisses the juncture of her neck and shoulder, and she shivers, curling her arm backwards to cradle his head. “I’m not going to look until you want me to,” he says into her ear, then sucks her earlobe into his mouth and starts working her shirt up again. 

She stops him again with her hand on his wrist, but this time it’s a gentle touch, a pause instead of a freeze. “What if I never want you to?”

He smiles against her ear, nips playfully. “Then you can put a bag over my head when we’re making love,” he says, then tugs at her shirt again. “May I?”

This time she lets him, but can’t stop from crossing her arms over her chest as the material clears her head. She might not have an arc reactor embedded between her breasts anymore, but even the most cutting-edge of her reconstructive surgeries couldn’t do much to repair the extensive scarring. She shouldn’t be embarrassed, but the thought of exposing them to him is paralyzing. It isn’t logical, and she knows he’s not going to mind, but logic has never played in that ballgame.

True to his word, Clint doesn’t try to look and instead busies himself with pressing gentle, teasing kisses along her shoulders and neck, running his hands over her stomach and hips in light, soothing strokes until she’s quivering and relaxing against him, until she’s comfortable dropping her hands to rest over his. She swallows hard, steels herself and drags his hands up from her waist to her breasts. 

The soft, muffled noise he makes against the nape of her neck in response is indescribably hot, and so is the twitch of his erection nestled against her ass. She sprawls back against him, lets her eyes drift shut, and blindly seeks the back of his head with her hand, threading her fingers through the strands. 

Her nipples tighten, ache to be touched, but he spends his time caressing and massaging her breasts, cupping their weight before shifting up to trace the lines of her collarbone and then down to skim across the ridges of sensitive scar tissue. “Please,” she whimpers, tries to pull his hand to where she needs it to go. “Please.”

“Okay,” he breathes, shaky and low, and lightly brushes his fingers over her nipples. 

She keens out a moan, grinds back against him and tightens her hand in his hair until he’s panting in her ear, until he’s rolling her nipples between fingers and thumbs, until the line between pleasure and pain is too blurry for her to distinguish. “Want your mouth,” she moans, tries to twist around without forcing him to let go of her breast.

“Nnf. Are you sure?”

Impatiently, she swats his hands away and slides off to the side, straddles his legs and settles right onto his lap, this time facing him. “I’m sure,” she says, even if there’s a tiny niggling voice in the back of her head that calls her a liar, but even that voice shuts the fuck up at the look on his face, dazed and awed and reverent. 

“You are so fucking beautiful,” he breathes with his eyes shining, touches her face, her shoulders, her scars, her arms. “I’m the luckiest guy in the goddamn universe.”

Her breath hitches, and that tight, painless ball in her heart breaks free with the hot burn of tears and a swell of nothing but raw, untempered emotion. “Oh,” she breathes, dazzled and wondrous with the epiphany. “I love you.”

His head jerks up, eyes gone startled and round, and his hands still over her breasts, and every muscle beneath and between her legs is whipcord tight. “Toni?”

She smiles, lays a hand on his cheek, eyes shimmering. “I love you, Clint,” she says again.

“Christ, Toni,” he says, thick and shaky, and cradles her face with both hands, smooths her hair back, kisses her tenderly. “I love you too. Always have. If it wasn’t stupidly fucking crazy and stupidly fucking fast, I’d ask you to marry me right now.”

Her breath hitches, and she lifts off his lap long enough to haul off her leggings, then tugs at the waistband of his sweats until he lifts up enough for her to get them down his legs. She settles back in place on his lap, and her breath stutters, womb flutters, as his length slides against the slick, wet heat pooled between her legs.  “Ask me anyway.”

He groans, hands tight on her hips, and tips his forehead against hers, restlessly pets her sides and back. “What?”

“I said,” she replies, and adjusts the angle of her hips until the blunt head of his cock is nudging against her entrance, has to struggle to stay still and not guide herself down onto him. “...  _ oh fuck …  _ Ask me anyway, Barton.” 

His breath is harsh and ragged, and now he’s the one trembling. “You’re going to kill me,” he groans, and the flex of his grip is her only warning before he’s pushing into her, slow and thick and so goddamn  _ good  _ it almost hurts. “Marry me,” he pants, seizes her head and bites at her lower lip as he rocks into her. “Fuck it being too soon and fuck it being crazy. You’re crazy and so am I, so crazy completely works for us, and I’ve loved you for years and you’ve loved me for years, and we shouldn’t waste any more time, so marry me, Toni.”

She shifts her legs and hooks her ankles behind him, clutches his shoulders, digs her nails in, and shudders with a long, loud moan because the change in angle takes him deeper, until he’s stroking over just the right spot to jolt her up to an entirely new level of pleasure. “Yes,” she moans in his ear, and cries out when he pulls her tight against him and  _ really  _ starts fucking her. 

And then all she can do is hold on and  _ feel,  _ cradled to him, wrapped around him, and washed away in sharp, relentless pleasure. 

**oOoOoOo**

A knock on the door breaks Toni's pleasant, post-coital doze, and she lifts her head from where it’s pillowed on Clint’s arm to squint in its direction. It takes her a long moment to remember that Clint called for dinner, but the realization dawns when a second knock sounds, followed by the helpful call of, “Room service!”

“Just a second!” she calls back, and winces at the soreness of her throat. She shifts around to eye Clint, sprawled on his back with a self-satisfied smile. “I should make you get up,” she mutters, then gingerly gets out of bed and grabs a robe out of the bathroom to belt on before she answers the door. 

She lets the attendant wheel the cart into the suite and directs him to the table to start setting up the silver-domed trays while she fetches her wallet. Clint’s just starting to stir, blearily squinting at her before his expression breaks into a broad, contented smile. “Come back to bed,” he rumbles and stretches out a hand. 

She smiles, because he’s adorable and she’s recently discovered she’s disgustingly in love with him, but shakes her head. “Food’s here,” she says, “and I’m starving. Sorry, honey. Food’s gonna win.”

He grumbles and falls back against the pillows, arm over his eyes. “Don’t eat my pizza,” he says. “I’m getting up.”

“You’re grumpy after you get laid,” she observes as she pulls a ten out of her wallet, then shrieks a laugh as he surges up to swipe her around the waist and roll her onto the bed. She loops her arms around his neck. “This is not helping me tip the waiter,” she murmurs.

“He can wait, it’s literally his job title,” Clint says lazily, and bends to kiss her deep and slow. 

\---

The plate of lasagna is massive, but Toni falls on it like a starving wolf, finishing the entire serving to the extent of using her garlic bread to swipe up stray bits of sauce and cheese from the plate. She slows down to linger over dessert, a sliver of New York cheesecake and rich, dark coffee. 

“So we’re getting married,” Clint says casually, blowing on his coffee to cool it before sipping. “That’s a thing that happened.”

Toni arches an eyebrow at him as she picks up her own cup. “Buyer’s remorse? Dick move, Barton.”

He grins, and Toni thinks he’s relieved that she isn’t falling all over herself to backtrack it. “Just making sure.” He takes another sip, then sets the mug down. “What’s our next move on the mission?”

Toni blows out a breath, scrubs both hands through her hair and grimaces. “I don’t know,” she says. “I’m kinda flying by the seat of my pants here. You’re the experienced one with this type of shit, so I guess I’m open for suggestions?”

He nods, drains his coffee and stands. “I’m going to grab our tablets,” he says, bends to kiss her forehead. “Eat your cheesecake. I’ll only be a second.”

“If you think I take orders,” she calls after him, “this is going to be the shortest engagement on record!” And his laugh floats back to her from the bedroom. 

She’s licking the plate clean when he comes back with his arms full of their electronics, and she helps him clear the dishes off the table, stacking them back on the food trolley they were delivered on, so he can do whatever super secret agent stuff he’s got in mind. “Can you give me admin access to the Avengers databases?” he asks, flipping open his tablet.

“I never locked out your creds,” she says, settling back down in her chair. “I don’t think Maria or anyone else did, but I can’t be sure.”

“I never had admin access,” he says. “Even if they’re active, I can’t use my creds to override any protections Rogers and Wilson put on their search effort reports.”

The lightbulb goes on over Toni’s head and she smiles. “Ah, I see. Yeah, you don’t want admin access, cos admin access doesn’t get you shit. You need  _ Stark _ access. Gimme.” She holds out her hand for the tablet, and he slides it over for her voiceprint, thumbprint and retinal scan. “That should pretty much let you go anywhere, so don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” She props her chin on her hand and watches him poke at the screen for a minute, then sighs noisily, reaches through his arms and activates the holo display. 

He side-eyes her as the blue-light interface springs into being in the air above the tablet’s screen, and she smiles brightly. “It’s a new feature,” he says defensively, and she smiles even brighter. “I was retired when this model came out.” She grins then, and he narrows his eyes at her. “You’re insufferable,” he mutters, and starts gesturing through the holo interface. 

“And you’re marrying me,” she says placidly, picking up her coffee and draining the remains. “As Natasha would say,  _ ha ha sucker.”  _


	8. Chapter 8

Whether because of the enormous meal, the catharsis of emotions, the mind blowing sex or some combination of all three, Toni's asleep with her head pillowed on her folded arms not long after the sun goes down, smiling contentedly as she breathes deep and even.

Clint’s careful when he lifts her out of her chair, doing his best to not wake her because he knows as well as anyone that the one thing she needs more than anything else is sleep. But all she does is murmur his name and curl trustingly into his chest as he carries her from the dining area into the bedroom, and it does weird but awesome things to his sense of pride and of awe.

Her eyes crack open as he gets her situated under the covers, sleepy and questioning. He crouches on her side of the bed, smooths her hair back from her face, and smiles fondly. “Shh. Go back to sleep. It's late.”

Her eyes close again, and her mouth curves in a dreamy, gorgeous smile that makes his stomach flutter and his cock twitch. “Mmmmkay,” she purrs, and snuggles into her pillows. “You joinin’ me?”

“Soon,” he promises, and keeps stroking her hair, listening to her breathing even out again. “Just gonna finish up with the database.”

“Kay,” she breathes, and she's under again. Clint watches her for a long moment, smiling himself, and can't help but reach out to stroke her cheek with the back of his hand. She makes a pleased noise and her face turns into his touch, and that's when Clint is one hundred and ten percent sure he's totally fucked for anyone else ever again.

“Good thing you said yes,” he says softly, strokes her cheek again, feels pleased satisfaction curl through him as she continues to seek his hand, “cos you broke me, so you're stuck buying me.”

He pulls away from her, more reluctantly than he thought he would be, and moves back to the holo display frozen above the tablet on the table, paused on a three-dimensional representation of one blue-tinged James Buchanan Barnes glowering out at him, and the attached files Toni managed to dredge out of the HYDRA/SHIELD infodump Natasha was kind enough to accomplish a few years back.

He blows out a breath and scrubs through his hair. “Alright, Frosty,” he says to the image and sits back down in front of the controls. “Where the fuck are you hiding?”

\---

An hour later, he’s no closer to finding the pattern he knows is there in the files Wilson and Rogers saved to the Avengers database during their two-year search, and he’s not sure if it’s because there isn’t one, or because he’s too tired to make heads or tails of it.

He glances at the bedroom, but Toni, just barely visible through the door, is still sound asleep, and has co-opted his pillow. He sighs and stretches as best he can in the chair, winces as his back pops, and carefully sits straight.

He should really call in Nat on this mission, but he’s not sure if Toni will take that as commentary about her capability. He taps the darkened face of his smartphone thoughtfully, runs the pros and cons in his head. On the pro side, Nat has a more extensive network of contacts and snitches than he does in this part of the world. On the con side, Nat’s going to be smug and insufferable if he calls her in.

He sighs again, rubs his face briskly with both hands, and snatches up his phone to call the farm's landline before he thinks better of it.

It rings through to voicemail, which makes him check the time zones in case he has it backwards and it's ass o'clock back home. Huh. Nope. Broad daylight.

“It's me,” he says, after the recording prompts him to speak. “Everything's fine, but we could use another set of eyes over here. Nat, I need your connections. Laura, sorry, but I gotta borrow your wife.” He pauses, glances back at the sleeping Toni again, and sighs. Dropping his voice, he adds, “Nat, go by the bank and pick up that thing I put in the lockbox a few years back? It's already done, but I need it anyway. Meet us in Prague. We're at the Grand Mark under the name Carbonell.”

He ends the call and tosses his phone on the table, then stretches and yawns. He leaves the tablets running to download the masses of files still queued, and heads into the bedroom, shedding clothes as he goes.

Toni stirs as he slides in next to her, and plasters herself against him almost before he can get comfortable. “Timezzt,” she mumbles without opening her eyes.

“Still night,” he murmurs, and kisses her nose. “Go back to sleep.”

She burrows as close to him as she can get without climbing through his skin, and he smiles into her hair. “Stay,” she says, muffled against his jaw.

He tightens his arms around her, enjoys her breathy purr of contentment and the slide of her hand over his back, and closes his eyes. “Not going anywhere.”

**oOoOoOo**

_You have one new message._

_“If you’re asking me what I think you’re asking me to get from the safety deposit box, Barton, congratulations. I will, of course, kill you when I see you, because Laura has not stopped squealing since we got your message an hour ago, and now we’re out of painkillers. See you in Prague. If you’re very lucky and I’m feeling generous, you’ll see me right before I stab your face in.”_

**oOoOoOo**

_You have three new messages._

_“Unless you’re putting Rhodes in a dress, Stark, I’ve got dibs on maid of honor. Welcome to the family. It’s about goddamn time you two stopped dancing around each other.”_

_Next message._

_“You’re not putting me in a dress, Toni. I’ll walk you down the aisle, hell yes, but I’m not doing it in a dress. I don’t care what I said when we were in college. I’m proud of you, sister, though I am going to check you for concussions and mind-altering substances, since I know how allergic you generally are to commitment. Love you. See you soon.”_

_Next message._

_“Just touching base, Toni. You need to sign the documents I emailed ASAP. One of them is an amendment to the Avengers charter, and another is the authorization to give Reynolds a very well deserved raise. Sharon and the others should be released from the Raft pending UN review of their actions. Stock is holding steady, and I managed to acquire another 0.5% from retiree cashouts. Let me know if you want to hold the wedding at the Manor. It needs cleaning and airing out if you’re using it for the event. Congratulations, hon. Give Hawkeye my condolences.”_

_End of new messages._

**oOoOoOo**

Rhodey is kind enough to fly Natasha to the Czech Republic on his and Hope’s trip to pick up Sharon, Scott, Sam and Wanda from the Raft, even if it is about three thousand miles out of his way.  To be honest, Natasha’s a teensy bit sorry she has to get out in Prague, because Hope’s been working the kinks out of an epically brutal chewing-out she’s preparing for Scott, and Natasha kinda wants to be on hand for the fireworks to start exploding.

On the other hand, it also means she’d have to see Wanda up close, and she’s not sure she can handle it without needing to add _and personal._ She’s still bruised from that shipping crate Wanda threw her into, and she knows she’s very, very lucky she avoided permanent injury  or worse from crashing into it at the base of her skull with the force of her weight behind it.

Rhodey puts the quinjet down at Terminal 3 at Vaclav Havel after getting clearance from the towers to land, and he pulls the headset off. “Last chance to come watch Hope yell at Scott,” he says, turning to grin at her from the pilot’s seat.

Natasha snorts delicately, unbuckles her belt and opens the panel behind which she stored her go-bag. “I’m not really into leering at other people’s foreplay, Rhodes,” she replies, debates for a second, and pulls a carry case, opens it, and starts rifling through the storage compartments for the medical supplies, communicators and various other sundries she’s eighty-five percent sure Toni and Clint will forget.

“And yet you’re going to a five-star hotel where Toni and Barton have holed up, immediately after they apparently got engaged.” Hope’s grin is broad, and she shakes her head slowly. “Sometimes I worry about you.”

She eyes her with her best Russian Ice Queen stare, but she doesn’t flinch. Dammit, Laura’s softened her up after all. She’s going to have to work on that. “While I acknowledge your point, van Dyne, what you fail to realize is that at the Raft, I can’t beat anyone up without having to account for my decisions. With Toni and Clint, it’s almost guaranteed it’ll come to a fight, and there’ll be much less red tape involved.”

Rhodey laughs and Hope looks thoughtful. Then she shrugs with an easy smile. “My apologies. You still have your priorities straight.”

“Of course I do,” she scoffs, and latches the case shut again, then shoulders her bag. At the hatch, which Rhodey obligingly thumbs the release for, she hesitates and turns back to face them both. “Keep Wanda away from Laura. Keep Laura away from Wanda.”

Rhodey’s expression loses its humor, and Hope’s smile fades. “Of course,” Rhodey says. “Anything else before we kick you out?”

She eyes him, then Hope, then back to him. “Both of you keep your phones charged,” she says after a moment. “I have no idea what we’ll be walking into here, and I am very good, and Clint is very good, and Toni is at least competent without her armor, but the fall of SHIELD tore Eastern Europe a new asshole for covert ops and agent safety. I trust four people to have my back, and both of you are on that list. You’re on deck for backup.”

“Out of curiosity,” Rhodey says, and she glances back over her shoulder again. “Why not call the other two people you trust?”

Natasha smirks and descends the first step on the boarding stair. “Because I’m _their_ backup,” she replies. “Just remember to plug in your damned phone.”

“Day or night,” Hope says, nodding her agreement. “You call, we’ll come.”

“Good. The things I do for friendship,” she mutters, and rubs her forehead to chase away the migraine she just knows is looming on the horizon.

As she watches the quinjet lift off again from the terminal, she feels one last tiny wistful pang, because Rhodey's right to suggest that watching Hope yell at Scott is more fun than tracking a boogeyman from her past for the sake of a friendship and a family tie. But, as she turns towards the airport and starts heading towards the door leading inward, she figures maybe she’s making the smarter choice. It’s definitely the _tidier_ choice. There’ll be less risk of blood in Prague than there would be in the Raft.

 _Of course,_ she amends a little while later, fast-tracked on SI’s voucher through Customs and heading to the taxi ranks outside the front of the airport, _that really depends on Clint and Toni, doesn’t it?_

She cuts in front of a middle-aged yuppie with a thinning ponytail and an obnoxiously loud cell phone conversation, sliding into the only free yellow cab at the curb while he’s still bitching to whoever’s on the other end about his flight into the city. “Grand Mark, please,” she says to the driver, then wiggles her fingers smugly at the yuppie as he bangs on the window with indignance and irritation.

She’s got about twenty minutes, give or take traffic, until she arrives at the hotel, and the driver is friendly enough, but he gets the hint that she’s not in a particular chatty mood and restricts himself to a handful of comments instead of the usual endless chatter of airport cabbies. She knows she should call home to let Laura know she’s safe on the ground, but she decides to just text instead.

_I'm on the ground. Safe and sound._   
_Rhodes is a boring pilot. No excitement whatsoever._   
_Heading to hotel to meet up with T and C._   
_Expect to be busy. Will text whenever I can and call as soon as possible._   
_I love you. Miss you already. <  3_

She tucks her phone back in her pocket and sighs faintly, leaning back against the seat and turning to watch the scenery go by as the cab maneuvers from the airport to the center of the city. This is a vacation she kind of needs right now. She loves her wife, the mother of her children, the wonderful, warm person who makes her feel less like the entire world is drab and shitty, but Laura is excitable, has waited for Clint to find someone to marry since about the same second he married _her,_ and was loudly, happily combing through bridal magazines and wedding planners with Pepper when Natasha left.

Fled. When Natasha fled at top speed.

She loves her wife, but her eardrums seriously need a fucking break.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Where is all this plot coming from?


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It might be the minor sleep debt, but I think Hope's been hanging around Toni and Natasha and Pepper a little too long.

Toni wakes warm and cozy, and it’s a long minute for her brain to process why.  _ Married,  _ the sleepy refrain starts in the back of her head.  _ Married, married, married.  _ She’s halfway pulled out of his arms before she finishes processing, and then she stops dead, blinking.  _ Oh. No. Not married. _ And swift on its heels is  _ mine mine mine.  _

She eases back down, and finds him awake, silently watching her, when she settles again. She bites her lip, hesitates only for a moment before threading her fingers through his hair, smiles when his eyes close and he leans up into her touch. “Leaving me?” he rumbles.

“No,” she says softly, playing with his hair. “Just habit. I’ve been reminding myself you’re married so long, it’s ingrained.”

“I know.” His voice is equally soft. He shifts around until he’s on an elbow, leaning over her, nose brushing hers. “Gonna take a bit to readjust to the thought that you’re not happily shacking up with Pepper.”

She snorts and wriggles beneath him until she’s stretched along the length of his body, then curls into his warmth, burrowing into the hollow beneath his chin. “Christ, no.  We haven’t been together in years. Ultron was kind of a deal-breaker for her. Not just that I invented the world’s most evil murderbot, but also that I kept suiting up after I promised her I’d stop.”

Clint’s silent for a long time, so long Toni’s nearly drifted back to sleep with his hands ghosting up and down her back in a soothing rhythm. “Is there ever gonna be a time when you stop blaming yourself for that?” he says quietly, and Toni jolts fully awake again. 

She pulls back, just enough to see his expression, and she can’t read it. He’s closed off, neutral, careful, and a lump rises in her throat. “No,” she says. “Because it’ll never stop being true.”

“Except it’s not,” he says, and rolls them both until he’s on his back with her sprawled across his chest, and his hands resume their slow, lazy explorations of her spine and shoulders. “Everyone thinks it’s your fault because you’re happy to let them, but Jesus, sweetheart. At what point are you going to stop letting everyone make you into their punching bag?”

Her mouth opens and closes a few times, but for the life of her, try as she might, she’s got nothing to say in response. “I… Clint, I…”

He tucks an arm under his head and pins her with the kind of assessing, intense stare that she can’t look away from. “You think I’m responsible for the Chitauri invasion?” 

She’s not an idiot, she knows where he’s going with this, and she is suddenly desperate to stop having this conversation. But she knows it’s not going to be that easy to do. “Of course not. But it’s not the same.”

“Kind of is,” he replies easily, and spider-walks his fingers along her spine to dig at knots and tense spots. “If the fact that my knowledge of top secret facilities, SHIELD security protocols and the most efficient way to cripple the Helicarrier were used in the attacks can’t be held against me, how the hell can anyone hold your expertise with AI and your fear for your team’s safety being used in those attacks against you?”

“You were mind-controlled,” she says sharply, shoves herself upright and glares down at him. It doesn’t help her equilibrium that his cautious, neutral expression has now shifted into one of definite lust and interest as he looks her up and down. “Stop it. You’re not sex-ninjaing your way into winning this conversation.”

“I’m not looking to win anything here, Toni,” he says with a smirk. “Just wishing more discussions in my life had happened with you naked on top of me.”

“You’re a horrible liar,” she says primly, then squeaks as his hands close on her hips. She squirms and yelps as he levers her up and hooks his arms beneath her legs, and before she can do more than start vocalizing her protest, he’s got her positioned with a knee on either side of his head, and heat squeezes tight in her belly when he turns ever-so-slightly to kiss her inner thigh. “Oh yeah,” she says, tries for sarcasm but gets breathless want instead, “you’re not trying to win anything here.”

“Definitely not,” he says, and that heat squeezes again at the husky, low tone. “See, thing is, Toni… If I get a pass for being mind-controlled, then you get a pass for being mind-controlled. That’s kind of how it works.”

She licks her lips, swallows hard. “I wasn’t mind-controlled,” she says again, spasms inside, bows over his head when he kisses higher on her thigh, keens a little through her nose. “I was in control of my actions the whole time.”

His thumbs stroke across the creases of her thighs, and she leans her head against her wrist, propped on the headboard, licks dry lips, tries to get her rapidly-dizzying thoughts back in a semblance of order. “So why’d you program him to be destructive and genocidal?”

“I didn’t,” she says, a little fast, a little high-pitched, but he’s shifted his head around again, and his breath is blowing fast and hot right across her clitoris, and it’s distracting as  _ fuck.  _ “That wasn’t me.” 

“I thought you were in complete control.” His tone is innocent and sly all at the same time, and if Toni’s higher thoughts weren’t dissolving into a single-minded focus of where his head’s going next, she’d take issue with how he’s twisting her words around. “You have to let it go, Toni. It wasn’t your fault.”

“You’re the one obsessed with it right now,” she says through gritted teeth and sucks in a startled breath when he flicks his tongue across her labia. “Jesus fucking Christ, what are you doing to me?”

“Positive reinforcement,” he murmurs. “Or sex-ninjaing my way into a win. Depends on your interpretation.”

She blows out a shaky breath, fists a hand in his hair and glares down into his upturned, smug grin. “I really fucking hate you,” she grouses.

“I know you do, Toni,” he replies, grin growing into a broad smirk. “And here we are anyway.”

**oOoOoOo**

Toni’s never been satisfied with the limited holo capability of the Starkpads, even though Pepper keeps reminding her that none of her competitors are remotely close to being able to offer the kind of interactive 3D interfaces Stark Industries has on the market. She’s spoiled, she supposes as she connects her tablet to Clint’s in ways that would make her baby engineers weep, but the display that lights up above the conjoined tablets is twice as large and at least half again as intuitive. 

An arm snakes around her waist and she yips reflexively, but tilts her head to let Clint nuzzle into her neck and runs fingers through his still-damp hair.  “Another one who needs a collar with a bell,” she grumbles, but turns into his arms to wrap hers around his waist. 

His mouth comes down hard and sure, and despite a morning spent naked in bed, she’s moaning and parting her lips for him, wrapping a leg around his hip and raking down his back with her nails, before she can blink. “A collar might be fun,” he says when they absolutely have to come up for air. “Didn’t know that was a kink of yours.”

Her breath catches as the possibilities start cascading through her head at the innocent phrasing, entire avenues of opportunity populated by images she never let herself imagine while she’d been with Pepper because it hadn’t been Pepper’s thing. “Well,” she says after clearing her throat and trying fruitlessly not to melt against him, “now you know. What do you plan on doing about it?”

The devilish gleam in his eyes promises her he’s got plenty he plans on doing about it, and he hoists her to settle completely around his waist, turning to take her back into the bedroom as he lowers his head to the side of her neck.

“Not saving anything for the honeymoon?” Natasha’s voice floats, unwelcome and acerbic, and Toni yelps at the suddenness with which she’s dropped back to her feet and swiftly manhandled behind Clint’s larger, now tensed, frame. “Tsk. Neither of you are young anymore. Try not to wear yourselves out before you’re actually  _ expected  _ to do nothing but have sex for days on end.”

Toni doesn’t wait for Clint to move, just impatiently nudges him out of her way so she can eyeball Natasha with the most baleful look she can muster up. “One of these days, you’re going to have to tell me how you can manage to track people on the other side of the world when they’re going through efforts to hide.”

“Always helps when they call and ask you to come,” Natasha replies with a smirk, and slides off the bed to stand with her hands tucked into her back pockets. “You wouldn’t believe how much time that shaves off the process.” Her eyes flick from Toni’s to Clint’s and back again. “I take it someone forgot to mention they requested my assistance on this project?”

“I got distracted,” Clint says, a little guiltily, a little defensively. “It wasn’t on purpose.”

Toni eyes him, watches him squirm just a little under her gaze, then relents with a tiny smirk. “We’ll discuss it later,” she says, represses a shiver at the way his eyes darken when she adds, “like we were discussing things earlier.”

“Yes ma’am,” he says happily, and snags her around the waist to haul her into him again. “Looking forward to it.”

“You two,” Natasha says with great disgust, “are going to rot my teeth out of my head with the sappy sweetness. I thought we had a psychotic supersoldier and his brainwashed friend to locate and deal with. Just play footsie under the table while we hammer out a plan like any self-respecting secret agents.”

**oOoOoOo**

Hope hasn’t even said a word to Scott yet, and he’s already looking remarkably cowed just by her unamused stare and the arms crossed over her chest. Rhodey and the army of lawyers are busily overseeing the transfer of the Avengers’ gear and personal effects from the Raft into the quinjet, which leaves Hope to ride herd on the actual transfer of prisoners from supermax to the quinjet passenger bay. 

She may be enjoying it a little too much. 

She’s still a little more than shocked Sharon Carter’s one of the four she’s transporting back to the compound, because while she and Sharon were never as close as Toni and Sharon are, she’d always credited Sharon with more smarts than this debacle would otherwise suggest. Everyone has their blind spots though, and from everything Pepper has said to this point, Sharon made a bad call based on one of her blind spots. 

The other two Avengers, Sam Wilson and Wanda Maximoff, Hope barely know at all, except what she’s gleaned from things Rhodes and Natasha have said, and what she’s read about in their files in the last couple of days. Wilson comes across as a rational by-the-book sort of guy on paper, but Hope’s not really seeing it in the choices he’s made and the blame he’s chosen to throw around since the Accords were officially announced. Maximoff, on the other hand, she keeps a wide berth from, because she can’t get the dangerous look Natasha wore when she told her to keep Wanda away from Laura out of her head. 

Can’t get the pile of wrecked cars crushing Toni into the pavement out of her head. 

Can’t get the sight of Natasha flying across the tarmac and smashing into a shipping crate out of her head. 

“Collar stays on,” she tells the JSOC agent strapping Wanda into place. “Just because she’s released into approved custody doesn’t mean she’s actually free.”

Sufficiently cowed, the agent lowers his hands from the latch of the collar and nods tersely as he finishes securing the straps and buckles. “Yes, ma’am.”

Hope represses a grin, but only because Scott is looking at her with those big, soulful I-fucked-up eyes, and she doesn't want to give him even the slightest hint she isn't coldly furious with him.

Because she is. 

Oh, she totally fucking  _ is. _

She lifts her eyes to see if she can spy Rhodey, but he must still be deeper in the hangar bay doing arcane things with paperwork. If she’s being honest, she knows she’s the one who should be doing the paperwork. It’s not that she doubts Rhodey’s ability to get through the red tape — one does not make it to Colonel in the United States Air Force without developing proficiency with wielding triplicate forms, after all — but her, what, two decades plus chasing her father around Pym Industries means she’s long since mastered the art of wading into and navigating all sorts of bureaucratic bullshit, only to come out smelling like chocolate covered strawberries and coconut suntan lotion. 

Scott’s next to be loaded into the quinjet, and if she wasn’t  _ so very fucking pissed  _ at him, she’d pity him for how defeated and repentant he looks. Without the Pym particles to power his size-shifting, Scott’s just a normal person, so there’s no collar around his throat, just a pair of manacles keeping his wrists locked together in front of him. 

She pins him with the hardest, coldest, alpha-bitch glare she’s capable of producing, enjoys a little too much once again how rapidly he flinches back from her, and points at the seat nearest the cockpit. “That one goes there,” she tells the JSOC agent who’s leading Scott by the shoulders.

Just like the first one, this agent just murmurs, “Yes, ma’am,” and does what he’s told without further commentary. This supermax prison is an enormous shitshow about to hit the fan in hi-def slow motion, of that she has no doubt, but goddamn, right now she just appreciates the shit out of the unquestioning obedience it’s bred into its lapdogs.

“No, really,” Scott says, and tries again to melt Hope’s heart with pleading eyes as the agent shoves him on. “The cargo hold’s fine for me. Give me a blanket and tie me up to a crate or something. I’ll be safer. I mean, I’ll be okay! I’ll be  _ okay _ back there!”

Hope reaches out and, using two fingers, tips him back into the chair and waves off the agent now hovering over her shoulder so she can belt Scott in herself. As tempting as it is to pull the straps as tight as she can get them and watch him wheeze and squirm, she takes the utmost care in ensuring he’s belted in securely without losing the ability to breathe. “The time for you to run away from this conversation is long since done,” she says softly, and she’s trying for a neutral, even cadence, but there has to be something in her tone, or maybe it’s still the expression she’s wearing. Because Scott gulps loudly, and if his eyes go any wider, they’re going to pop out of his skull. “I know Pepper tore you a new asshole the other day, and I know Toni’s had a run at you, but Scott, I want you to believe me when I say they were just the warm-up and now I’m at bat, and you are  _ really fucking screwed  _ because right behind me on deck? That’s where  _ Maggie’s  _ standing, patiently waiting her turn. _ ” _

"Wouldn't it be easier to just kill him?" Rhodey asks easily, ducks his head as he comes through the hatch. "I got all the bird suits and last decade's motorcycle leathers stowed away and signed for, Hope. If you're done being goddamn terrifying, I'd like to get away from this place before I have to use up another three pens signing my name to every damn thing they shove at me."

Hope straightens, squares her shoulders, and this time, lets Scott see the utter, fathomless  _ disappointment  _ she has for him. The resignment mixed in with the anger, the hurt and the lack of comprehension. "Yeah Rhodey," she says, doesn't take her eyes off Scott as she speaks, sees all those new emotions crash with painful realization into Scott's mind far harder than her towering, fuming rage had done. "We're good. Let's get out of here. This place sets my teeth on edge."

Hope doesn't look back at Scott as she strides away from him to sit in the co-pilot's chair and start running her share of the preflights. "I hope we all know what we're doing here," she mutters, audible just in the cockpit under the whine of the engines firing up. "This has a lot of potential to blow up in our faces."

"I know." Rhodes' voice is at the same pitch and volume, and Hope has to strain to hear him clearly. "But that doesn't mean we don't have to try. Just try not to ruin your manicure. I've seen what Eduardo does to those who do not properly appreciate his efforts, and since Toni got banned from his salon, dude's been really struggling to make ends meet."

"Fuck off, Jim," she says, half amused and half just plain exhausted, and wants to cheer when the sloth in the Raft's control booth finally gives them the clear to take off. "Let's get this bird in the air and headed home, so I can get my shots in before Laura, Pepper, Maria and Maggie monopolize the idiots' chewing out time."

Rhodey throws her an easy grin, and takes the quinjet into the air like he's dancing with the waves. "Sure it wouldn't be easier to just kill him now?"

Hope snorts, adjusts the instrumentation so Rhodey doesn't have to, and spins the chair to face him. "Are you kidding me? Do you know how much blood is in a human body and how long it takes to make sure there's no evidence left to convict me? No, killing him is not easier. Right now, it might be more  _ satisfying _ , but I'd regret it somewhere in the second hour of being on my knees to scrub blood off the floor."

 

**Author's Note:**

> Because (wait for it) Medie.  
> [Tumblr](allthemarvelousrage.tumblr.com)


End file.
